It's Time To Buy Your 2013 Farm Share

By Anthony Todd in Food on Apr 3, 2013 2:20PM

Spring has sprung. At least that's what we're telling ourselves, even though it's only 40 degrees outside and there are still piles of snow sitting around. What does spring mean? It's time to buy your 2013 farm share (or CSA) before they are all sold out.

What is a CSA? CSA stands for Community-Supported Agriculture, and it's a way for individuals to buy into a particular farm. Here's the basic idea: Produce farmers usually take out loans to buy all the equipment and seed necessary to plant their crop and hope to repay the loan by selling their produce at markets throughout the summer and fall. However, they may have a few bad weeks (or the markets may get rained out) and their income can be unpredictable. Enter the CSA.

When you join a CSA, you pay what seems like a huge amount of money (often several hundred dollars) up front. You are, effectively, taking on the role of the bank, providing the farmer with guaranteed cash when they need it. Then, you are entitled to a "share" (a bunch of produce) of the crop, usually delivered in weekly installments. If you can front the money, the prices work out over the season and you also get the benefit of having an almost-overwhelming supply of local goodness.

Here's the problem: how do you choose? A few years ago, this was easy, but as CSAs and local eating have become more popular, there are now an insane number of different options. Pickup? Home delivery? Fruit, eggs or meat?

Thank goodness Wendy Aeschlimann at The Local Beet has done the difficult and unglamorous work of figuring it all out for you. She's created a sortable CSA guide that includes every different possible category and qualifier, and it's even being updated as CSAs sell out for the season.

Make sure that you look at the pickup location. If you can't reliably get to the pickup spot every week, your produce share is going to rot in a basket. If you can't find one that serves your neighborhood, think about buying into a farm that offers home delivery. We bought our CSA for 2013 from Big Head Farm, which offers home delivery for the entire season for just $95 extra.

Head on over to Local Beet and play with their guide. If you've never bought at CSA before, this should be the year.