Smells Like Green Spirit

Community Supported Agriculture

13 07 2007

I’ve often wondered how someone can possibly make a living in this day and age as a farmer, and must bashfully admit I envision long, arduous, miserable hours of slaving away to scrape pennies out of the fields. Reading about huge corporate farms makes me sad, especially when it comes to the way it puts independent farming out of business, and the way they treat their employees.

Something we can all do to support local, independent farmers, to get fresh fruits and vegetables straight from the source, and to get more involved in our communities and the process of agriculture is to look into what CSA’s or Community Supported Agriculture are available near us. This type of operation completely eliminates the middle man, thus ensuring more money goes straight into farmers’ pockets, and fresher food goes into our homes and bellies.

Often, CSA’s will have consumers pay an amount up front to receive some of the bounty of the fields, which is picked up about once a week. Buying from local farms that take part in this process not only saves you money, but the farmers make sure to have as much of a variety as possible in each batch.

A Website you can visit to find CSA’s in your area is:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/csa.htm

CHICAGO AREA CSA’S

Although I’ve yet to visit a CSA, some listings for CSA’s in the Chicago area are: