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Community Supported Agriculture

CSAs help us invest in food and farms

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By Emily Meagher

Gomez Veggie Ville, photo by Pattie Garrett

This time last year, we learned that a secure food supply could suddenly turn into shortages. Buying from local farms, which have a much shorter supply chain, is a great way to be assured of getting freshly harvested, quality food. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) provides an even better guarantee.

By purchasing a CSA, customers make an early investment to help farmers get their season started, quite literally giving them seed money. Then, CSA members reap the harvest season’s benefits by receiving produce at a discounted price. Saratoga Farmers’ Market’s Wednesday and Saturday outdoor markets, which begin in May, will offer several CSA options.

Owl Wood Farm, photo by Pattie Garrett

Owl Wood Farm is one of the farms offering CSA subscriptions. They have traditional ‘Box Shares’ that run for 20 weeks, starting in June, for $450. Each share has a salad green, a cooking green, a root crop, an herb, a type of onion, and seasonal items, like strawberries, beans, or summer squash. The ‘box share’ is an excellent option for weekly shoppers who like variety and enjoy creative cooking. A second option is the ‘Market Share’: customers get “Owl Bills” to use at the farm’s stand whenever and for whatever they want. Any prepaid dollar amount over $200 receives a 10% credit added to it. Customers may purchase shares on Owl Wood’s website or learn more at the market when they return in late April.

Gomez Veggie Ville, photo by Emily Meagher

Gomez Veggie Ville is also offering vegetable CSA shares to customers this season. Shares last for 24 weeks and consist of a variety of fruits and vegetables. Full shares include 8-10 items per week, depending on the season. Half shares have 4-5 items per week. Customers can opt for pre-packed boxes at $600 (full share) or $300 (half share) or choose the pick-your-own option for $650 or $325, respectively. Gomez Veggie Ville is already taking sign-ups at the Saturday farmers’ market. Contact them by phone (518-686-5212) for more information.

Other farms offer more specialized CSA options, like 518 Farms’ mushroom shares. Customers are sent a rotating list of available mushrooms two days before market day and can choose their mix to pick up on Saturdays. There is a small (½ lb per week for $140) or large (1 lb per week for $260) option; both run for 13 weeks. For more information, visit 518 Farms’ website or inquire at the winter market.

This week’s recipe: Swiss Chard and Kale Gratin

The revival of community-supported agriculture

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By Julia Howard

Echo Creek Farm, photo by Pattie Garrett

While the mainstream media reports on crops rotting in fields due to the food chain disruption caused by COVID-19, the local agriculture scene is experiencing a different reality. Local farmers are responding to the demand for fresh food and CSA’s, once considered to be a niche market, are gaining momentum.

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) by Echo Creek Farm’s definition is “a mutually beneficial commitment between farmers and their community.” Members of a CSA ensure a customer base and stable income for farmers throughout the growing season. In return, the farmer provides CSA members with a weekly share of seasonal produce.

Owl Wood Farm, photo provided

Local farms are experiencing a surge in CSA signups as consumers are looking for food that has been handled minimally on the journey from farm to table. Consumers are also looking to avoid the stresses of shopping and CSA shares offer a solution: a variety of ripe, freshly-harvested products on a consistent schedule.

Echo Creek Farm, Owl Wood Farm, and 518 Farms currently offer CSA shares. These shares vary in pricing, products, and frequency, and each farm offers pick-up and delivery options to meet customers’ specific needs.

Echo Creek Farm offers a ‘harvest share’ that runs for 15 weeks from June through September. “Our share relies heavily on familiar items. Each week you’ll receive a collection of vegetables that are in season and grown using organic methods. The amount varies a little as the growing season changes, but it’s generally appropriate for a family of 2-4 people,” says Mike Palulis, farm owner. Pickup is at their farm in Salem.

Owl Wood Farm offers two CSA options: a standard ‘box share’ that runs for 20 weeks from June through October and a ‘market share’ where credit is added onto a gift card in increments of $100 and customers use this credit while shopping at their farmers’ market stand. Owl Wood offers ‘box share’ pickup at the farmers’ market, drive-thru pickup at their farm in Salem, and home delivery.

518 Farms, photo by Pattie Garrett

518 Farms offers a variety of mushrooms in their weekly ‘small ½ lb. share’ or ‘ large 1 lb. share’. Subscribers may select from blue and yellow oysters, lions main, nameko, chestnuts, maitake, and shiitake with pickup on Tuesdays at the farm in Hoosick Falls.

In addition to these CSA farm shares, Elihu Farm offers an egg subscription, Slate River Farms offers ‘box selections’ on their pastured pork and grass-fed beef, and Goode Farm offers a weekly flower subscription.

This week’s recipe: Rhubarb Cake

CSA Shares Simplify Cooking for Busy Parents

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

Tomorrow, as you visit the Saratoga Farmers’ Market, we invite you to consider a different kind of Mother’s’ Day gift: A seasonal CSA share from one of our local farms.

CSA is shorthand for community supported agriculture. A share is like the purchase of stock: It reflects an investment in a farmer’s livelihood in exchange for receipt of a box filled with fresh foods from that farmer each week.

“It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement for everyone,” says Justine Denison, of Denison Farm. “It reconnects people with the land that sustains them while helping to build awareness of our interdependence on each other.”

Denison began offering CSAs in 2005 after the family began farming on land leased from another farmer who Denison recalls growing “the most beautiful produce around.” Inspired by the example, the Denisons have made the distribution of beautiful food via CSAs much of their farming mission on their own land in Schaghticoke.

CSA shareholders pick up their boxes at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market or other distribution sites and then have time to browse and enjoy the market, supplementing their boxes with meats, cheeses, and other foods from other vendors.

“It’s a beautiful arrangement,” Denison says. “People look at the box and start asking questions about how to prepare what’s in there. We respond with recipes and cooking strategies. It creates a connection that becomes long-lasting.”

The connection is sustained as farmland changes hands. The Gomez family now farms the land that the Denison family leased. They too offer CSAs, with an option for either a boxed share containing a predetermined selection of produce or a market share, which gives the purchaser the option of choosing a set amount of items.

Produce farmers generally begin offering CSA shares for purchase through May, and begin distributions in June.

For market administrator Julia Howard, CSAs s take the guesswork out of cooking.

“It’s an awesome option for working families who enjoy cooking and eating healthy and local,” says Howard. “You know that every week you will have a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, with the added bonus of supporting a local farmer.”

Farms offering CSA shares at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market are Owl Wood Farm (vegetables), Gomez VeggieVille (vegetables), Elihu Farm (eggs), Clyde O’Scope Farm (fruit and vegetables), and Denison Farm (vegetables).

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is 3-6 p.m. Wednesdays and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays at High Rock Park. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and check us out on the FreshFoodNY app. E-mail friends@saratogafarmers.org for volunteer opportunities.