In many communities it’s a lot more difficult to find a Community Supported Agriculture Farm, or CSA, than it is to find a grocery store or fruit market. I am a CSA farmer and over the last couple years I’ve seen more and more farmers use the Internet to spread the word about their farms and how to sign up with a CSA farm. Most of the CSA memberships in our area tend to fill up rather quickly so timing is important too. In Michigan CSA farms tend to open membership for the upcoming season in March or April. The concept is to collect funds from CSA members early in the season to pay for the seeds, transplants, and other cost associated with growing the produce closer to the time when the bills are due, which is early spring.
There are several online resources available to put consumers in touch with CSA farms and other farms that sell directly to the public. I will list some of those websites below. Another way to find a CSA farmers is to visit your local farmers market as many CSA farms will use the Farmers market for a drop off location throughout the growing season.
How to Contact a CSA Farm
Our CSA farm in located in Central Michigan and we have been actively growing our CSA membership over the last couple years. Contacting a CSA farm, once you have found one with a drop off close by, is really quite easy. If you live in Michigan, try to contact a CSA farm during March or April. Contacting a CSA farmer during this time will be productive because they will know if they have shares available and they won’t be that busy yet. I spend quite a bit of time on the phone during March and April answering questions and helping new members sign up for the coming CSA season. We grow about 2 to 3 times the amount of Food that our CSA members could possibly use so we can accept late members. Last year we accepted 11 members in June alone. Of course we couldn’t have done this had we not been planning for increased membership. I think the warm weather and talk of gardening in May and June gets people to consider joining a CSA, nature is the best marketing tool. So each year we will continue to try to have available shares for the later members.
How to Sign Up for a CSA
Signing up with a CSA farmer will be pretty straight forward and vary from farm to farm. We like to keep things simple and get the membership signups straight and all set up before we get busy. I have a simple membership form on our CSA Program page and when our members fill it our it is automatically stored in a Google Documents spreadsheet. When I go out to harvest for a weekly drop off all the information I need is right on my phone, it really makes it organized and simple. Members mail their checks directly to me and I have all their contact info in my phone. About the 15th of May I call all the members and give them and update on the progress of the crops and let them know when the first drop off will be. I can usually tell by mid May when Asparagus, greens, and other early crops will be ready and by this time a month or more has passed from when they signed up. I make it a point to talk to each memeber before the first drop off to give them an overview of the program. Each farmer will be a little different but we all try to make signing up for a CSA as simple as possible and most of us look forward to welcoming new members.
How to Find a CSA Farm
One of the best resources you will find on the Internet to locate a CSA Farm is a website called Local Harvest. Local harvest has a large presence online and is a true nation wide resource for CSA farms and other farm grown produce and other goods. I have my farm listed on local harvest and also write a blog there. Over the past few years they have helped me to market my CSA farm and produce to consumers, like you, who want to eat healthy farm raised produce and buy it at a fair price. Our members are mostly down to earth people that have contacted us because they want quality products to feed their families, Local Harvest has helped some of the people find us and we appreciate it. You can visite the local harvest website here: www.localharvest.com
Community farmers markets are another good way to locate local CSA farmers. The problem with the farmers market is you may find the CSA does not have any additonal memberships open during the season the farm market is actually open. You can talk with them though and possibly make a contact for the following year. Another thing that works is to ask your friends, you might be surprised that a few of them may be members of a CSA already.
If you have any questions about a Michigan CSA farm, Michigan produce, or becoming a member of the Central Michigan CSA please send me note, leave a comment or give me a call.
Thank You,
J.Crawford
