Cascadia Scorecard News
June 2005

How's this for a summer daydream? It's a July evening, and you've just picked up your weekly groceries. Not at the supermarket, though, but at the local drop-off point for produce from "your farm." This week's box stars corn so sweet it barely needs to be boiled; heirloom tomatoes, ripened on the vine; and a variety of other fresh-picked herbs, vegetables, and flowers. Dig a little deeper and you find a loaf of bread, free-range eggs, and a bag of nectarines.

Welcome to buying produce the community-supported agriculture way, where you lose a little in choice but gain a lot in freshness, taste, and, well, community. Community-supported agriculture farms (CSAs)-growers who sell prepaid "shares" of produce directly to consumers-have exploded in popularity in the Northwest in the past 15 years.

Consumers like having a relationship to a local farm; supporting sustainable farming; and learning to eat and cook according to the seasons. Small, largely organic farmers have turned to CSA as a way to connect directly to customers and to create a stable source of income, especially critical for farms on the urban fringe, where development pressures are intense.

In North America, CSAs began cropping up in the late 1980s; estimates now put the number of US CSAs at around 1,500. The Northwest is one of the hot spots, with around 64 CSA farms in Washington, 45 in Oregon, and 17 in Idaho. (Accurate BC numbers were unavailable.) Evidence suggests (pdf) that the CSA model is also attracting new farmers: CSA farmers are younger on average than the farmer population as a whole, and a higher percentage, 40 percent, are women.

In the early days of community-supported agriculture, potential customers were sometimes deterred by the fear that they wouldn't be able to eat all the produce in a box (usually designed for a family of 4-6); that a half-year commitment was too much; or that they would be unfamiliar with many of the vegetables. Call it the kohlrabi factor.

These days, you can find a CSA to match almost any lifestyle. At Seattle-area Full Circle Farm, for example, members can choose from three box sizes, be on a week-to-week plan; indicate items they never want to see in their box; choose from 20 pick-up locations; and make all their selections online.

CSAs also offer other products such as meat, chicken, eggs, milk, and cheese. Some offer winter or spring shares. Some farms take the word "community" seriously, with work-hour requirements for members, harvest fairs, and chatty newsletters. In other cases, members just pay and pick up. And if you'd like your produce as carbon-neutral as possible, some Northwest farms deliver by bike.

Furthermore, CSA-inspired businesses are showing up around the Northwest that offer home-delivered produce baskets from a variety of local farms. Examples include Pioneer Organics, which delivers in Seattle and Portland; and Vancouver, BC's Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD), which will open a Seattle branch this summer. While such businesses are not "pure" CSAs-usually a single farm-to-consumer direct service-they tend to offer options such as week-to-week commitments and year-round service. (This also means that baskets-especially in the winter months-will include more shipped produce, so consumers should be aware.)

Community-supported agriculture, of course, is just one of a number of local-produce efforts--such as farmers markets and farm stands--that are growing in popularity. In the face of an increasingly global food market where food travels an average of 1,500-2,000 miles from field to table; food security issues; and the slow, steady creep of rural sprawl, all are important.

Supporting locally grown produce reduces fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions; keeps more money in the local economy; and, by making sustainable farming a viable career option, keeps that rural land less vulnerable to sprawl.

CSAs may play an especially key role because by paying in advance for produce-essentially giving a loan to farmers-consumers take on some of the risk of farming. And by bringing home that box of seasonal produce every week, they also take on its rewards.

Some farms already have their CSA shares filled for the season, but many allow members to opt in throughout the summer. See the resources below for more information.

Finding a local CSA:
Share tips on Cascadian CSAs on the Scorecard blog
Local Harvest's US directory of CSA farms
NewFarm.org's collection of CSA resources
Oregon and Portland CSAs
Idaho CSAs
Puget Sound Fresh guide to CSAs
Tilth's Washington CSA list
Victoria's Good Food directory
Vancouver, BC's certified-organic directory

More information:
Sightline's study on the loss of rural and farm land in 15 cities
Food for thought: Sightline's article on the impacts of food choices
Food Routes directory