Nourished Magazine :: Wisdom to thrive by

Back in 1990 when I co-authored the book Farms of Tomorrow, there were perhaps 60 community supported farms (CSAs) in the USA. When I returned to the subject to help write Farms of Tomorrow Revisited (1998), I found that there had been a quiet, steady surge of growth in the movement to over 1,200 farms, and also a general deepening of commitment and knowledge among the existing farms.

Now, 21 years after the CSA farms emerged in Europe, Japan, and North America, the trajectory of success for this community based agrarian model continues upward in many places around the globe.

Agriculture is the foundation of civilization, both ancient and modern. Without a steady supply of clean, life-giving food, we have neither the leisure nor the energy to cultivate other aspects of life, such as art, science and industry.

In the face of the world’s overwhelmingly disturbing agricultural, environmental, and social news, the slowly but steadily emerging evolution of CSA farms around the world is both wholesome and heartening.

Community farms offer a range of practical and enormously helpful possibilities.

• CSAs reliably yield clean, nutritious, affordable food for the communities where they are located.
• CSAs offer a direct outlet for farm products, and fair compensation for the labor of the farmers.
• CSAs strengthen local economies by keeping food dollars in local communities.
• CSAs directly link producers with consumers allowing people to have a personal connection with their food and the land on which it was produced.
• CSAs encourage wise land stewardship by supporting farmers in a community effort to enrich and heal the land while producing clean food using energy-saving tools and techniques.

A CSA farm is a community-based organization of consumers and growers. The consumer households live independently, but agree to provide direct, up-front support for the local growers who produce their food.

The growers agree to do their best to provide a sufficient quantity and quality of food to meet the needs and expectations of the consumers.
In this way the farms and families form a network of mutual support, whether the community be a region, a neighborhood, a church, a school, or some other constellation of people and resources.

As it is being practiced right now at a great many farms around the world, CSA is not just another clever, new approach to marketing for farmers. Rather, community farming is about the necessary renewal of agriculture through its healthy linkage with the human community that depends upon farming for survival.

While CSAs confront a host of challenges and questions, they do work: they feed people, they save energy and money, they take care of the land, they make it possible for people to farm the land on a sensible scale, and they bring networks of independent households back into direct connection with each other and the earth.

Altogether, CSA farms are establishing a global network of environmental models that have the potential to serve our grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well as us. CSA farms serve as oases of radiant environmental health, broadcasting their natural vitality to the surrounding world.

About the Author...

A native of New England, Steven McFadden now makes his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he serves as director of Chiron Communications, and continues his work as a writer, a speaker, a counselor, and a healer. Steven is the author of seven non-fiction books, including: Legend of the Rainbow Warriors; Profiles in Wisdom; The Little Book of Native American Wisdom; Teach Us To Number Our Days; Farms of Tomorrow; and Farms of Tomorrow Revisited.He maintains an active interest in farming in general, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in particular; he has reported on the growth and development of CSA in America since its inception in 1986.