Something To Chew On - Why CSAs Are So Important

From The Gardens Project's weekly column in the Ukiah Daily Journal:

If you choose to read one thing today, read this, as the concept of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is incredibly important to our future in Mendocino County and quite possibly holds our salvation.

CSA is an increasingly heard but not often understood term that refers to an arrangement whereby customers commit to buying the production of a farm for a season (everything from fruits and vegetables to meat, grains, and flowers), pay a sum of money upfront, and then receive the farm’s bounty throughout the season. Typically, the customer receives a basket of fresh vegetables every week from a farmer with whom they have a personal relationship.

In our modern, hyper-choice-happy culture, a CSA takes some getting used to. In a CSA, customers buy a “share” in the farm and become “members” of that farm, sharing in the risk and glory of the production. You don’t get to pick and choose what goes in your basket – you just get a share of what the farm is ready to harvest that week. To some, this lack of choice is unappealing. If it requires giving up the option of getting exactly what you want, why buy your food through a CSA? Why is it SO INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT?

To help answer this burning question, I talked to Gloria and Stephen Decater who founded Live Power Community Farm in Round Valley and started one of the first entirely community based farms (CBF) in California. [Note: a Community Based Farm (CBF) is the original ideal from which modern Community Supported Agricultures (CSAs) derive. The Decaters prefer to use CBF to describe what they are doing, but more people are familiar with the term CSA. Both are used in the rest of the article, essentially interchangeably.] When I asked the question, “Why are CSAs important?” Stephen replied, “[because] we’re not going to be able to create a local food economy leaving it up to chance and the market.” According to Stephen, a community based farm “takes it [food production and a farm’s survival] out of the market realm so that it’s not based on chance. Eaters partner with the farm to create economic viability.” This economic viability allows a small farm to survive in the face of the daunting market forces created by industrial agriculture and an unbridled, global capitalism; the market forces that we witness and participate in when we shop at Walmart, Safeway, the Coop, and even the Farmers Market, and that cause most farms in Mendocino County to farm at a loss each year while the farmer pours their heart, soul, and 14 hours a day into the operation.

When I posed the question “why is a CSA better or different from just shopping at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday?,” Gloria responded that “community based farming goes deeper” adding that the Farmers Market often acts as a stepping stone for both customers and producers towards community based farming and a CSA, and that “we need everything – the Coop, Farmers Markets – but what we especially need is awareness and depth of relationship (between farmers and eaters) and mutual support expressed through community based farms.”

Stephen expressed the desire for eaters in Mendocino County to become aware of “the potential they have to spend money consciously,” and to see food consumption as a “window of opportunity” to create a local food economy. “How they spend their money will decide what kind of agriculture we have…farmers can’t do it just by themselves.”

If creating a sustainable local food economy in Mendocino County is important to you, I encourage you, with every fiber of my being, to become a member of a CSA. Live Power needs 20 more members for this season. You can reach them by calling 983 – 8196 or emailing livepower@igc.org. The Ukiah High School Hillside Farm is also trying their hand at a CSA for this summer season. They need members and you can reach them by calling 468 – 8493 or emailing ecrawford@mcoe.us .