Thursday, July 29, 2010

Why It Is a Good Idea to Join a CSA ( Community Supported Agriculture)

We just joined a CSA farm, which is a farm that sells shares of its crops at the beginning of the season and then gives a share of its crops weekly to its members during harvest season. The farm we joined is called Freedom Organix  and is located in Harvard, which is not too far from us. We joined when the season had already begun, but we are still going to enjoy 12 weeks of organic and fresh vegetables and pastured eggs! We also subscribed for their Harvest Box and reserved a turkey for Thanksgiving. Today we are going to get our first box and we are very excited about it. To us, it made sense to join a CSA because it offered multiple advantages

1) All the vegetables that we will eat will be organic and locally farmed without having to go every few days to the farmers' market and at a cheaper price than that of the farmers' market

2) The money that we spend will go directly to a small family farm and not in the hands of some big corporation or distributor

3) We will have the chance to visit the farm where our vegetables are grown and I think that is not only a pleasant experience for us but also a valuable lesson for our son as he grows older

4) We will eat whatever comes in the box, which means we will have to eat any vegetable we get depending on what is in season. For us that will probably mean more variety throughout the year as we tend to buy always the same "favorites" at the supermarket without risking to try vegetables that we are not familiar with. It is purely a psychological factor but while for example I ate everything my parents presented me, I never voluntarily bought certain kinds of food that I like less. This way we will feel like we don't want to waste anything and we will be challenged to find new recipes for foods we are less used to

5) Eating fresh and in season means also getting more vitamins and nutrients

So these are the theoretical advantages of the CSA. As we get the box and we actually try the vegetables I will post about the practical advantages/disadvantages.

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