Courtesy of Lee Zukor, Simple, Good and Tasty

What is a C.S.A?

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it is a method whereby urban (and I suppose suburban) dwellers invest in a share of a local farm in exchange for the bounty of that farm during the harvest season. They have grown in popularity in recent years, and its not uncommon for certain CSA’s to sell out their available shares, and for farmers to not be able to meet the demand. This is all good news for several reasons.

C.S.A.’s connect urbanites with farmers

For far too long, peope in cities and suburbs have ignored the farms and farming families that live jsut beyond their reach, instead preferring to buy their produce at enormous (convenient) grocery stores and markets. I don’t know how the value evolved that said we have no need to know who is growing our food. Personally, I want to know the people doing something so essential as feeding me. We basically ceded that control to our government with the USDA and FDA, and guess what…they screwed us? So its time to take back that responsibility. C.S.A.’s are one of the best ways to do this, since we get to decide, based on whatever criteria we may have, which farms to invest in. Whether they are organic, or bio-dynamic, or simply sustainable, wihtout organic certification, etc..

Supports the local community

3 times a day we get to make an extremely political act. How we spend each food dollar is an overtly political act. When we pour Lucky Charms into our cereal bowl, we are voting in favor of a company like General Mills feeding us. Some may think this is fine. But each dollar that goes into local communities goes a little way to ensuring taht those local communities have a future. Every dollar spent on local farms, even if they aren’t in your county, or even your state (for instance, in the NYC -area, a lot of the CSA farms are located in New Jersey) benefits that community and is a statement on the value of those communities. Money that stays in the community goes to local taxes, and therefore to schools, roads, teachers etc..

We eat better and more foods

Local, sustainable produce is amazingly more nutritious and flavorful than goods trucked in from G-d-knows-where, Chile, China, California, etc…The second point here is a little bit more counterintuitive. If we are eating only what’s in season, aren’t we eating fewer foods? Nope! One of the most confusing realities of having an industrialized and commoditized food system is that we’ve come to expect that we can have whatever foods we want, whenever we want them. We can actually AVOID the foods we think we don’t like. Everyone has their dislikes, rhutubaga and turnips are pretty high on most people’s lists, but when you join a CSA, you are going to get some unfamiliar items. So you can either do two things. You can throw out the ones you dont like or are unfamiliar with, or you can whip out a cookbook and discover a whole new world of taste, texture and nutrition. This takes more time but ulitmately is amazingly beneficial.

There are many more reasons…but in the meantime…I’ve been reading in earnest my good friend Lee Zukor’s blog Simple, Good and Tasty. Lee is a CSA member, and each week he’s been posting pictures and thoughts on his weekly haul. I love reading how excited and enthused Lee gets. I also love the idea of Rhubarb margaritas. Go LEE!