Community Supported Agriculture — members pay up-front for a share of a farm's harvest, delivered weekly through a season.
A CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program lets a farm sell a season's worth of harvest directly to members who pay at the start of the season. In return, members receive a weekly share — a box of whatever is ripe that week — for the length of the season (typically 16-24 weeks).
Members share in the farm's risk: a bad tomato year means fewer tomatoes in the box. In exchange, they get the freshest possible produce at wholesale-plus pricing and direct relationship with the grower.
Modern CSAs often include add-ons: egg shares, meat shares, flower shares, dairy shares. Multi-farm CSAs aggregate several local farms under one subscription.
Vegetable full share
$550 for 20 weeks ≈ $27/week for 8-12 items
Egg share add-on
$180 for a dozen eggs/week for 20 weeks
The CSA model came to the US from Japan (teikei, "putting the farmer's face on food") and Switzerland/Germany in the 1960s. It landed in Massachusetts in 1985 at Indian Line Farm and spread through the 1990s organic movement.
Grass-Finished
Beef (or lamb) raised and finished entirely on pasture and forage, never grain. Different from "grass-fed" which requires only partial pasture.
Organic Certification
USDA Organic label requires 3 years of organic soil management, no synthetic pesticides, no GMOs, and third-party annual audit.