What is a CSA Share?
“Community Supported Agriculture” is the phrase farmers use to describe the method of selling our vegetables to you, the consumer, in a way that asks customers to make a major financial commitment to support just one single farm over a growing season. That doesn’t mean you can’t go to the farmer’s market to buy an extra pint of berries or basket of heirloom tomatoes, it just means you commit to financially investing in one farm’s season, which is very important for our growth and planning.
You’ll hear farmers use the acronym “CSA” for short.
We call the customers “members” because the financial transaction invites you to become like a member of a club more than just an occasional shopper.
The member’s weekly harvested box or bag is called a “share” because we’re setting aside a specific number of items and creating a tasty, nutritious share of mostly vegetables but also herbs, fruit, and sometimes flowers for you and your family or housemates.
Three Part Harmony Farm relies almost exclusively on member support to make plans, purchases, and commitment to the workers at the beginning of each season. Despite a renewed demand surge for local produce, it can still be challenging for small, minority owned farms to access secure, financially stable markets.
In exchange, members receive:
- a steady supply of fresh, high quality, nutritious in-season vegetables from our farm plus produce from partner farms
- weekly emails with updates about the farm plus recipes (members will learn about how their food is grown and finish out the year having a better understanding of what it means to care for a diversified vegetable operation in a changing climate)
- the chance to replace some of their diet with produce grown in DC at a farm using organic methods, owned by a Black woman (the grocery store doesn’t give you many choices to opt out of a supply chain that uses planes, trains, ships and trucks carrying goods from a short list of consolidated food conglomerates – buying directly from a local farmer is a great way to opt out of that system and invest at least some of your food budget into the local economy)
875 thoughts on “Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)”
Comments are closed.