A CSA In Every Town! Let's Start With Windham County!

In what is one of our most ambitious projects to date, POS has launched a campaign to help organize a CSA in those communities of Windham County where one does not presently exist, and where there are farmers, and other local food producers, as well as residents, interested in starting a CSA.

 
BACKGROUND:
 

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a relationship of mutual support and commitment between local farmers and

community shareholders. The benefits are manifold, and include:

  • Local residents receive fresh, high quality, flavor and nutrient rich, safe produce every week.
  • Shareholders know where there food came from, form a direct connection with the farm and people who grow their food.
  • CSAs support local, small-scale farmers, keeping food dollars in the area. This strengthens the local economy.
  • Through this financial commitment, shareholders help to provide a guaranteed income to local farmers, thus helping to stabilize their operation.
Members pay the farmer an annual membership fee to cover the production costs of the farm. In turn, members receive a weekly share of the harvest during the local growing season.

The commitment implies willingness on the part of shareholders to share with the farmer both the bounty and risks involved with food production.

In return for fair and guaranteed compensation, shareholders receive a variety of freshly picked vegetables. Some CSA farmers—often in league with other farmers--also offer fruit, herbs, flowers and other products, such as meats, eggs, cheese, and baked goods.

Many farms offer their shareholders the opportunity to work in the fields and/or to help manage the CSA, in exchange for a discounted share price. Others offer sliding scales to accommodate lower income consumers.

 PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Our purpose is to seek out and bring together interested residents of a given community with one or more farmers and other food growers, all of whom have expressed interest in forming a CSA. We would then help organize the CSA by providing information, guidance, support, and services along the way, with the goal being that, at least by the end of the first growing season (if not earlier), the community CSA would be run entirely by the participants. Our goal is to have one or more CSAs up and running by the 2007 growing season!

Click here to read more about our current CSA projects.

If you are a farmer, institutions, or group of citiznes interested in having Post Oil Solutions help to organize a CSA in your Windham County community, please contact us at info@postoilsolutions.org.