"Organic" Farming and the True Cost of Food-A Small Farmers Perspective

[BronxBoy]

60. Tips for Joining a CSA...

1. Make sure you cook or know how to store food for later use. If it's a decent CSA, you will be surprised how quickly food will pile up with each weekly share. The overwhelming majority of members who dropped out or didn't renew our CSA did so because they just couldn't utilize the amount of food they were getting in their share.

2. Visit the farm. Ask the farmer questions about his growing practices and how long the farm has been in business. Be leery of a farm that is starting a CSA in its first or 2nd year of business. While a new operation can meet the demands of a CSA if the farmer has extensive experience, a new farmer and a new CSA may be a recipe for disappointment.

3. Make sure you can make the pickup days. When a farmer harvests for a CSA, he is specifically picking for you. If you don't pickup, the farmer has to find an outlet for the stuff that is picked. In many cases the CSA may be prepaid but most good farmers hate to see food go to waste

4, Are you adventurous? Many CSA grow stuff you won't ever find in a grocery store. Ever use Kohlrabi or purple potatoes? How about fresh lemongrass or Asian veggies. If you are a basic meat & potatoes type of person, a CSA may not be for you.

5. Make sure you are OK with someone making your weekly CSA selections for you. The farmer generally decides what's going to be in the share that week and you are pretty much bound by it. We have had some wonderful and supportive CSA members not renew because they just loved the process of going to market and selecting their veggies for the week.

6. Understand the risks. You are essentially becoming a shareholder in the farm. If a tornado comes along and wipes out Farmer B's crop, you share in that risk and forfeit any return of your CSA fees. You need to understand that as it can possibly result in a significant loss of money depending on an event such as drought of frost.