The Community in Community Supported Agriculture

CSA Member's picking produce on the farm.

At a time when farms are disappearing at an alarming rate, and some refer to family farms as an endangered species, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers an alternative. CSA is a growing social and agricultural movement that offers a path to farm preservation, stability and profitability, at the same time that it connects people with their food supply and builds community. CSA links the source of food (the farm and farmer) to the destination of the food (the consumer, or eater). A central concept in CSA is that farm members, as partners with the farmer, share some of the risks of production.

The origins of Community Supported Agriculture in North America, though recent, are subject to some interesting discrepancies. Japan's ‘Teikei' groups - translated as ‘food with the farmer's face' are often reported as inspiring the earliest CSA farms. Reporting on CSA for the online magazine newfarm.org, Steven McFadden found European roots in ideas articulated by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). These ideas were cultivated in post - WW II Europe. "The ideas crossed the Atlantic and came to life in a new form, CSA, simultaneously but independently in 1986 at both Indian Line Farm in Massachusetts and Temple-Wilton Community Farm in New Hampshire," according to McFadden. 

In its most basic form the CSA farm produces vegetables for a group of farm members or subscribers who usually pay in advance for their share of the harvest. Typically, the farm members receive their share once a week, sometimes coming to the farm to pick up their share; other farms deliver to a central point. A few even deliver door to door. The most common products of a CSA are vegetables in a wide variety. Many include fruit in the shares. But increasingly CSAs offer additional products, like honey, eggs, meat, firewood, bread...we even know of one that offers shares of homemade beer.

Another growing trend in CSA is to offer produce beyond the regular growing season. In some cases, durable crops like potatoes are stored for distribution in the ‘off' season. Other growers are experimenting with greenhouses to extend the season into the autumn and winter, and to start early in the spring. 

Farmers, like Jim, benefit from the relationships created by Commmunity Supported Agriculture.

Good for the Farmer, Good for the Consumer, Good for the Land

The farmer is relieved of the burden of marketing produce at just the time when the energy needed to grow the crops is greatest. CSA farmers concentrate on farming, on what they do best.

Members of the farm receive both concrete and subtle benefits. While spending from $300 to $500 or more in advance for vegetables that are not even planted yet is difficult for some (both financially and emotionally) membership is generally a good deal. Each week during the harvest season members receive an interesting variety of the freshest possible produce. Membership in a community farm provides a link to the production of food impossible for the supermarket or even the farm stand shopper to achieve. Members can see their veggies growing, watch them form and ripen, fret over difficult weather; many even get dirt under their fingernails helping out on the farm. Many CSA farms invite their members to the farm from time to time for special events. Harvest potlucks, maypole celebrations, garlic planting parties, midsummer campfires, and other activities enhance the connection of farm to member.

Most CSA farms are producing their produce using organic methods, though many are not certified because their members know the farmer(s) and trust them to use organic practices.

All CSAs are small in the context of ‘industrial' agriculture and many are very small indeed. Farms cultivating less than an acre are not uncommon, and an income for a small family is possible on just a few acres. A large CSA operation might take place on 40 or 60 acres. The number of members served can range from just a few friends and neighbors to 1000 or more. The farms tend to be more energy efficient than their more conventional neighbors, with plenty of handwork and small machinery and relatively little energy expended in distribution.

Members picking crops at CSA pick-up.

CSA in Northwest Michigan

Community Supported Agriculture came to Northwest Michigan in 1991, when Wells Family Farm (in Grand Traverse County) added ‘shares' of the harvest to their market farm. By 2000, there were still just a handful of growers involved in CSA. Now there are at least a dozen CSA growers in the region from Manistee County through Antrim County - and new farms starting up almost every year. How do growers feel about the competition? According to Todd Springer (Gray's Fruit Farm in Grand Traverse County) "We don't have enough farms...There are more people here than we can grow food for." Jim Schwantes (Sweeter Song Farm in Leelanau County) agrees. "There is plenty of room for all of us." Furthermore, each farm is a little different. Some require working in the gardens as a condition of membership. Some don't allow it. Still others offer it as an option. Some box the share up; others offer a ‘buffet style' pickup. So, says Schwantes, "to a large extent we each serve a different group."

The Community in CSA

Anthropologist and long-time CSA advocate Laura B DeLind suggests that "CSAs weave interpersonal relationships, place-based values, and ecological and social responsibility into their food as well as into their farming activities. They build community and restore a sense of place." Some growers actively form a community around the farm; others watch as it develops on its own. So how do some our local growers see community? I asked some of the region's growers what community means to them.

Jo Meller at Five Springs Farm in Manistee County thinks of community on her CSA as a "farm full of happy faces." She considers CSA a way to feed her friends and neighbors. Jim Schwantes echoes the sentiment: "Community is, literally, my neighbors." For Mike Wells at Wells Family Farm "Community means a shareholder making her reluctant teenagers turn our compost, just to help us out." Todd Springer is interested in bringing a broad spectrum of people into his community. He likes the idea of offering a place for different groups to learn about their individual strengths, their common interests, and their differences. "CSA is a way to bring these groups together...and they don't even know it!"

Sweeter Song Farm takes community service seriously. "For every 25 shares that people purchase, we donate one to a family that can't afford a share." This program has grown from the four shares that the farm donates to include donations of partial shares from farm members and cash donations for additional shares. "We know the community supports us...and we believe it is important that we support our community. That is what community is all about

www.csafarms.org is a local website with information on Northwest Michigan farms and links to other information about CSA. Use links on the site to find a CSA in other parts of Michigan or to search nationwide for a nearby farm.

Jim Sluyter and Jo Meller have grown produce for their members at Five Springs Farm since 1994.