What is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Taken from Aaron Duff's contribution on the wiki.

What is it?
A partnership between farmers and consumers where the responsibilities and rewards of farming are shared. Consumer members commit in advance, to buying their food directly from the CSA farm, in return they have the opportunity to influence the running of the CSA. Taking responsibility for how our food is produced and by whom. Direct relationship between the farmer who grows the food and the consumer who eats that food.

What models exist?

• Subscription: farmer driven, members subscribe financially but very little other involvement.
• Shareholder: consumer driven, consumers work very closely with farmer who produces what they want to eat.
• Farmer co-operative: farmer driven with 2 or more farms allowing specialization, eg larger farms concentrate on field scale production, smaller farms on specialist crops.
• Farmer/consumer co-operative: same as Farmer co-operative but consumers may co-own land and work together with the farmers to produce and distribute the food.

Check out www.simplygoodfood.co.nz