Tag: organic farming

What is a CSA?

A CSA, by definition, is a Community Supported Agriculture. In a CSA, people buy “shares” in a local farm in advance of a growing season, and receive their return in produce. It’s like that CD you have had at the bank for 10 years, except you get a return out of a CSA. To answer the question “What is a CSA”, we will go over a few pro’s and con’s.

PRO:

They’re flexible. One of my favorite things about using a CSA is that they are flexible. All of the farmers operate differently, and many times personally. They can grow produce according to past purchases of shareholders, deliver produce if you’re sick, and put your kids to work when they’re driving you nuts. The point is, It’s really a relationship between you and your grower that dictates how and where you can get your produce.

CON:

There is no guarantee. If the tomatoes get blight, or your farmer produces 1,000 linear feet of beans and no lettuce or kale, you get what you get. Paying in to the CSA does not guarantee the type of return you get. Just like any investment, you’re in it for better or for worse.

PRO/CON:

Most likely, your share will consist of produce you may not normally use. Your farm has to grow a decent variety of produce to stay relevant. They may even have some things you’ve never heard of before. Until I met my wife, I thought kale was a form of seaweed, so I understand the plight. If you can manage a bit of positive thinking, this is a great way to broaden your cooking repertoire. Along with that, you’ll be adding a healthy variety of new vegetables into your diet that you would not have normally ventured into. It’s an adventure!

PRO:

You can learn how to farm. If you have been reading my blog at all, you know that I am starting at zero. Why do you think I’m interviewing CSA farmers and following homesteaders on Instagram? I’m a flippin cheater. One thing that Graham from Valhalla Farms told me was that you can always glean from other people and other styles of farming. Even just by going to the farm to get your produce or asking the farmer questions. If you are lucky enough to be within range of Graham and Bianca, you may learn more about farming than you even want to. These people are a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips.

PRO:

It’s fresh. Check out this article. It is not the only article ever published on the nutrients lost in food in time. The more freshly picked your food, the better. For instance, Bianca and Graham pick their produce the night before or the morning of pickup depending on the variety. Do you have any idea how long it takes from farm to store to table for produce at a place like Walmart or Meijer? Neither do they! I guarantee it wasn’t picked that morning!

These are just a few of the things that make up a CSA. In the simplest terms, at the beginning of a given year, you pay for a growing season and are given fresh, usually organic, healthy produce in return. Sounds like a good deal to me.

As always, start small, think big, and stay healthy!

Why use a CSA?

A question with more answers than anyone would care to read about. The question should really be “why not?”

In the last post, I mentioned some pros and cons and could only think of 1.5. That is not a whole lot when you compare it to the health benefits alone.

In a CSA, members get access to fresh, often organically grown food. Fresh like…if you don’t wash it when you get home you may find dirt or bugs in your veggies.

You get to know your farmer. This may not seem all that interesting for any of you introverts like me. I’d rather be in my own yard cursing wood chucks than ever have to go to the farmers market and converse with a strange human, but there is something to be said about knowing the person who’s food you’re ingesting. You may not want to talk to him about the Lions, because who cares about the Lions, but at least he/ she can be accessed. Because sometimes, even though you don’t want to, you want to know that you can if you decide later that you want to. Bagging up what I’m rakin in?

Another reason is local community support. You may not like your neighbor, but you may REALLY not like the next guy who moves in. So support him just in case. It’s always good to keep local support whenever possible. Small sustainable communities are a great thing and are fewer and farther between every day.

I will conclude with this. It was an honor to meet with Graham and Bianca from Valhalla Farms. I got so much information from them about farming, CSA’s and healthy food that I hope that I can repay them with your patronage. They are wonderful people and I recommend checking them out if you’re ever at the Davison Farmers Market in Davison, MI on the weekend.

If you’re a dad and you’re reading this, happy Fathers Day! And, as always, start small, think big, and be healthy!

Who is the CSA

This is part one of a multi-part series about CSA farms (Community Supported Agriculture’s), how they work, and who works them.

Your CSA farmer may not be Graham and Bianca (sucks to be you) but I’m sure they’re great. The “who” behind a CSA farm is really, in part, you. Yes, your farmer works his tail off every season to deliver you fresh produce in the healthiest way he can, but without his community supporting him, he will fail. To create a sense of community again in times like these seems priceless, but it apparently is not. Its costs vary according to your CSA, and it’s returns are more than food. They are community, family, health, friendship, and much more. More than can be seen or measured. More than can be weighed on any scale. It’s even more than consumer and producer. It’s a pledge in your local farmer with a return. It is, in essence, edible stock in your local community.

I recently had the great pleasure to sit down and chat with Graham and Bianca from Valhalla Farms. If I meet my own expectation of this article, I will by no means do the two of them any justice. The vast amount of knowledge, dedication, and joy for farming will in no way shape or form be able to be expressed in this blog. Only by meeting them face to face could you ever understand the joy that it was meeting with them and learning more, not only about how a CSA farm works, but about THEM.

To me, one of the things that stuck in my head the most about purchasing produce from a CSA is that you know where your food is. If at any point in the middle of the night you wake up distressed, thinking about the poor living conditions of your turnip plants, you can get in your car and drive by the farm. Breathe a sigh of relief, because Graham and Bianca have taken great measures to ensure the quality of your turnip plants. Hyperbole? Yes. Fact? Also yes. What is better than know exactly where your food is before it hits your table? You can even go feel the dirt that it’s growing in if you ask nicely.

Do you know where your turnip plants from Walmart come from? Me neither, and I’m sure that nobody stocking them knows either. You might get an answer like “Uhh, I just grabbed the box from the back” along with a very confused/ possibly angsty look. Push your cart very politely back to the cart corral, get in your car, and go to Valhalla Farms. If you ask Graham where his turnips come from, he will give you that information plus the history of hybrid turnip plants and the most suitable soil types and zones to grow them. Have you ever seen rain man? It’s like that.

In this article, I hope to teach you (and learn myself) a bit more about how a CSA works and how it works for YOU. It’s being inserted in your body, so you have the right to know where it comes from and what it is. I hope that you enjoy reading this article as much as I have had fun writing it and learning more about CSA farms, especially Valhalla Farms. If you have more questions than answers, stay tuned for the next couple of sessions and I will fill you in on the how’s and why’s.

Start small, think big, and stay healthy!