Access Sustainably Produced Food through Your Local CSA

We just joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group for the first time. We live in New York City and there is a bounty of organic products within 50 miles up the Hudson River Valley. We will get 24 weekly boxes of veggies and fruits (for pickup at the local community center each Monday after work). We’ll keep you posted, but here is some good information on what a CSA is.

Rosamaria Caballero
Green Irene

Over the last 20 years, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of “shares” to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a “membership” or a “subscription”) and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.

This arrangement creates several rewards for both the farmer and the consumer. In brief…

Advantages for farmers:

• Get to spend time marketing the food early in the year, before their 16 hour days in the field begin
• Receive payment early in the season, which helps with the farm’s cash flow
• Have an opportunity to get to know the people who eat the food they grow

Advantages for consumers:

• Eat ultra-fresh food, with all the flavor and vitamin benefits
• Get exposed to new vegetables and new ways of cooking
• Usually get to visit the farm at least once a season
• Find that kids typically favor food from “their” farm – even veggies they’ve never been known to eat
• Develop a relationship with the farmer who grows their food and learn more about how food is grown

It’s a simple enough idea, but its impact has been profound. Tens of thousands of families have joined CSAs, and in some areas of the country there is more demand than there are CSA farms to fill it. The government does not track CSAs, so there is no official count of how many CSAs there are in the U.S.. Non-profit LocalHarvest has the most comprehensive directory of CSA farms, with over 2,500 listed in their database. In 2008, 557 CSAs signed up with LocalHarvest, and in the first two months of 2009, an additional 300 CSAs joined the site.

To find a CSA near you, visit Local Harvest’s CSA search at http://www.localharvest.org/search-csa.jsp.

What are “Food Miles”?

Surprise — your potatoes are better traveled than you are. American food travels an average of 1,500 to 2,500 miles from farm to table, according to the WorldWatch Institute.

A “food mile” is the distance food travels from the farm to the store where you buy it, and these miles are costly to the environment. They are, in fact, among the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Long-haul trucking requires enormous amounts of fossil fuel, the combustion of which releases carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Keeping food cold and unbruised requires even more fuel in the form of refrigeration and packaging. And let’s not forget the impact of long-distance flyers such as apples from New Zealand and Chilean grapes. Distances have been increasing in recent decades, as foods increasingly are imported.

According to one study, if you live in Iowa, there’s a very good chance you’re buying tomatoes picked 1,569 miles from your local supermarket, even though farmers grow them within 60 miles of the loading dock. But why pick on Iowans? We’ve all seen those rock-hard tomatoes – and that’s the second great tragedy of shipping food long distances. By the time they arrive, you forget exactly what they’re supposed to taste like. And guess which tomatoes taste better and are better for you? Locally grown tomatoes, of course.

Add it all up and it’s clear: If your food earned airline frequent-flier miles, you’d be jetting around the world for free. A Swedish study looked at the ingredients of a typical Swedish breakfast — apple, bread, butter, cheese, coffee, cream, orange juice, and sugar – and determined the food traveled a distance equivalent to the circumference of the earth. That’s 24,901 miles.

The idea has been floated to add food labels to food products to inform consumers how far a food traveled to get to the store. That hasn’t gotten anywhere (it’s pushed more in Europe), but there is a growing movement to “Think Globally, Eat Locally.”

Moral: By buying fresh local foods, less fuel is burned to get a meal to you. Plus, notice how it usually tastes more flavorful and fresher.

There are many Food/Coops/CSAs in the Harrisburg area which you can find on www.gengreenlife.com or www.localharvest.org. I have used Spiral Path (www.spiralpathfarm.com), located in Loysville, PA for the last 4 years. They deliver a box of food to various locations across the region every Wednesday from May to November. Spiral Path provides several membership tiers each season ranging in price from $350 for a medium share to $550 for a full share. You can also find Spiral Path at Wegman’s on the Carlisle Pike if you don’t feel like joining the CSA. If you are interested in joining a local CSA in the Harrisburg area, please contact me at Jim.camphill@greenirene.com.

Jim Armbrust, Eco-Consultant

Harrisburg, PA