CSA Meeting

I was really excited when I left the CSA meeting today. It was a very imformative session. The county Co-Op did a great job with the selection of speakers. There is one small CSA that just started in the Sandhills (sandhillsfarm2table). They have farmers lined up that are the larger production farms in our area. So the major things like strawberries, peaches, potatoes, etc are already taken care of but they are interested in the smaller farms providing the little nitches that the larger farms can't do. I haven't gone to their website yet but that's on the schedule for tomorrow.

So there are 2 ways that a CSA can be set up-individual and group farms. Within those it can be set  up several different ways also. I will try to keep this information as clear as I can. In general a CSA is the consumer would pay X amount of money to the farmer in exchange for a 25 lb box of produce each week during the growing season.

The first way this can be set up is by the individual farmer. Doing it this way he will solely responsible for providing all the fruits and vegetables for the consumer. The major drawback to this is if something happens on the farm and a partial or entire crop loss occurs for whatever reason then farmer is at a loss to fill the box with a wider variety. The worst case scenario would be total loss due to weather or natural disaster and the farmer would have nothing to offer. The pros for this type of CSA is that a farmer will be directly linked to the customer solely. So if variety and good flavor are provided they will be back and they will tell their friends about it. The customers would also be more likely to show up to your farm market during the times the CSA isn't provided, as long as the farmer has other things available, which we will. Also the money from this type of CSA all goes to the farmer. The farmer will also be able to set up their own rules time frames, delivery schedule etc that works best for them. Another huge pro to this is being able to promote your farm in the boxes with flyers of upcoming events on your farm, a weekly newsletter, or even some value added items can be placed in the box like jams jellies, honey etc with your farm label on it.

The second way to set up the CSA is by a group of farmers. For example, 4 farmers may get together and pool their resources and each contribute to the box that the customer has purchased. The drawback from this would be the items would be from different farms and if the customer gets something in their box that doesn't taste good then they will associate it with all the farms. On the flipside the customer may associate something really good with the wrong farm and a customer that would have came to your farm market is lost to another farm. Another drawback is that the income from the CSA subscriptions is split between the farmers meaning less for your farm. If this type of CSA is chosen I think it would best be done a large scale of 200+ CSA subscriptions. The pros for this kind of set up is that if there is a loss of a crop on one farm then another farm can help out and offer more for the customer box which helps that farmer with the loss. Another pro is that the work is divided among the number of farmers that group together and the possibility of having a box be less than the 25 lbs is considerable less than the solo farmer CSA.

Both types of CSA subscriptions have a choice of setting it up as customer choice or farmer choice. By this I mean, the customer would be given a list of what is available that week and they would get to choose the items and quantities that they would like in their boxes. The drawback to this is it would be difficult to plan the planting for this. The farmer choice is simply put the farmer chooses what goes in the box. The drawback to this is customers may get something a family member is allergic to or that they simply don't like. That would also cause the customer to be less likely to sign up for you CSA the next year.

They CSAs can also be set up as pick up or delivery. They can be home delivered or picked up at your farm or at a location that is closer to the area of heaviest concentration. A survey was taken and most people would join a CSA if it were within a 7-10 mile area of their home. If this is route you or we decide to take then an area would have to be chosen within the proximity of the customers then a specific place would have to be chosen. Owners of restaraunts are good places to start because this gets customers into their parking lots. Small grocery stores are a good idea because they would customers into their stores to buy things to go along with what is in their boxes. Having worked in food and beverage for some many years in this area if and when we decide to go this route I already have the contacts and most have shown favorable interest in being a pick up point.

Jeff and I discussed this and it is something that we would definitely like to do but we are going to hold off until our second year. The first year in business is always the toughest and we don't want to over extend ourselves. Plus, this gives us a full year to plan the planting, the rules, etc. We are definitely going to do this an individual farm CSA when the time comes. And hopefully when we are ready to do this there will be more interest and demand for than there is this year.