The most basic answer to the question "What is Community Supported Agriculture?" is that of eaters supporting growers in the most direct way possible. Members of a farm's CSA pay up-front ahead of the season when farmers are most in need of money for seed, supplies and equipment. In return eaters are guaranteed a share of the farm's harvest. The CSA community is one of shared risk and shared reward, empowering both consumers with the knowledge of where their food comes from and farmers with a more secure market for the fruits (and vegetables, leaves & shoots) of their hard work.
The ideas that informed the first two American CSAs started 28 years ago were articulated in the 1920s by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), and then actively cultivated in post- WW II Europe in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. 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.
The ideas that informed the first two American CSAs started 28 years ago were articulated in the 1920s by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), and then actively cultivated in post- WW II Europe in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. 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.
Susan Witt, former director of the E.F. Schumacher Society and a founding member of the Indian Line Farm said that in early discussions about this new model the group began to realize that Steiner's vision of a world economy where consumer and producer are linked by their mutual interests fit perfectly with Schumacher's major notion of developing an economy where you produce locally what is consumed locally. The CSA farm at Indian Line was a way to bring the key ideas of both Steiner and Schumacher together.
Robyn Van Eyn, another Indian Line Farm founder, was instrumental in the spread of the CSA idea in the United States beyond the Indian Line Farm. She authored the pamphlet “Basic Formula to Create Community Supported Agriculture,” produced a video “It’s not just About Vegetables,” and in 1992 founded CSA North America (CSANA), a nonprofit clearinghouse to support CSA development.
Today's CSA farm can play a substantial part in a sustainable future. Each farm has the potential to establish thousands of cells of environmental vitality in cities, suburbs and countryside, and to extend basic, healthy linkages among the people who make up a community.
As we know from its beginnings, CSA is not just a clever, new approach to marketing. Community farming is about the necessary renewal of agriculture through its healthy linkage with the human community that depends upon farming for survival.
We hope you will consider joining us and becoming part of this renewal.
Today's CSA farm can play a substantial part in a sustainable future. Each farm has the potential to establish thousands of cells of environmental vitality in cities, suburbs and countryside, and to extend basic, healthy linkages among the people who make up a community.
As we know from its beginnings, CSA is not just a clever, new approach to marketing. Community farming is about the necessary renewal of agriculture through its healthy linkage with the human community that depends upon farming for survival.
We hope you will consider joining us and becoming part of this renewal.