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Definition
Community Supported Agriculture or Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) is a community of
individuals or families who support a chosen farm and its family. Each individual or family
purchases, in advance, a share, called a subscription, of the year’s crop. Thus, the customers
become virtual partners or ‘co-producers’ in the farm, sharing risk and reward with the farm
family. Throughout the growing season, each week subscribing member receives equal shares of
the freshly harvested food from the farmer.
Origins
CSAs have their philosophical roots in the writings of Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner, who
formulated his educational and agricultural theories in the 1920s. Most important among the
theories was the association of producers and consumers, where the consumer and producer are
linked by their mutual interests. Ideally, this leads to an economy where what is produced locally is
consumed locally.
The actual CSA farms originated in a number of regions around the globe – consumers and
farmers formed community farms in Chile under the regime of Salvatore Allende in the early
1970s. The Chilean co-op movement inspired a Swiss farmer to start a community-based farm; and
in the 1960s German consumers versed in Steiner’s work were interested in founding an
agriculture system that was ecologically sound and socially equitable. In Japan, mothers concerned
about pesticide usage, the increase in imported food, and loss of arable land to encroachment by
urban growth began similar subscription farming called teikei.
The idea spread to North America in 1986 with a farm in Oregon and another in New Hampshire;
it has since spread inland from the coasts. According to the USDA’s 2007 agriculture census
report, released in 2009, there are currently 12,549 CSAs in operating in the USA, although exact
numbers are hard to establish as many CSAs maintain a low, strictly local profile.
CSAs in Canada
According to Equiterre, the Quebec-based non-profit organization that works on social and
environmental issues, 8,300 Quebecois families receive weekly baskets from 78 family farms.
In Ontario, more than 150 CSAs are listed by region on the Ontario CSA farm directory.
British Columbia’s Farm Folk City Folk, a non-profit organization committed to supporting a local
sustainable food system since 1993, lists 34 CSAs on its website.
Upwards of six CSAs are in existence in Saskatchewan, according to the Saskatchewan Organic
Directorate and several credible food writers in the province.
Atlantic Canada Organic Regional Network, a non-profit organic food organization founded in
2000, lists fewer than 10 CSAs on its website.