Community Supported Agriculture

Tuesday morning was cool and foggy--par for the course in Santa Cruz and excellent weather for our first big harvest.

We convened in the fields and gardens to receive our marching orders. The chalk boards listed about 20 crops and the amount to be harvested of each. 200 heads of lettuce. 80 pounds of spinach. 200 pints of blueberries. When all had been cut and cleaned, boxed and bundled and packaged, we moved the produce to the picturesque old barn where the farm's Community Supported Agriculture members pick up their weekly bounty.

Small farmers are faced with the challenge of selling their produce in a food system that favors large, industrial growers. Hundreds of thousands of small farms have succomed to this economic calculus in the past century. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is one of the more compelling models that has evolved to meet this challenge. Members of a CSA purchase a share of the farmers produce in advance of the harvest season and receive a regular supply (typically weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly) of fruits and vegetables. The farmer benefits by receiving his capital up front and is assured a steady market throughout the season. Some of the financial risk of his operation is effectively dispersed through the "investers" in his enterprise. Members obtain high quality produce at a reduced rate and enjoy a sense of connectivity to the food they eat, the land it was grown in, and the farmer whose labor brought it to being.

The CSA evolved independently and uniquely in Japan and Europe after World War II. The first CSA in the US, largely based on the European model, began in 1986 in New Hampshire. Today there are upwards of 2000 CSA farms in the US, ranging in membership from 10 - 1000. Farmers and members have developed countless varieties on the CSA theme. Some CSA memberships entail some involvement in farm labor, while other CSA members simply receive their reqular box without much interaction with the farm.

CSAs present their share of challenges as well. Developing a membership base, managing a large cooperative, creating newsletters, etc. are additional and often time consuming responsibilities that are added to the farmer's plate. Furthermore, CSAs typically offer a wide variety of seasonal produce to attract members and thus present farmers with more complexities than a monocrop operation.

Many of our 100-plus CSA members arrived early on Tuesday, often with their children, eager to pick up their first share and make bouquets out of our CSA flower garden. Their boxes included a dozen or so crops, including spinach, strawberries, rainbow chard, and -- to everyone's great delight -- two pints of fresh blueberries.