The Rural Voice, 1993-07, Page 30Closing the gap
Community Shared Agriculture brings
consumer and producer together
By Keith Roulston
Imagine a world where you knew before you planted seed
in the spring that all your crop would be spoken for. Not
only that, before the first seed went in the ground you'd
been paid for the crop. What's more, the people who eat the
food you produce are constantly complimenting you on the
quality of what you've grown.
Such a heaven on earth is actually happening for a
small, but growing, group of food producers across Canada
who arc part of Community Shared Agriculture (CSA).
People aren't getting rich off CSAs but they are finding a
rewarding new way of producing food and one that has the
potential to help other farmers, particularly those starting
out with very little.
Bob Budd, R.R.2, Goderich, has been part of one of
Ontario's first experiments in Community Shared
Agriculture (also sometimes called Community•Supported
Agriculture) for four seasons now. Each Tuesday and
Saturday from mid-June to late fall, members of this co-
operative movement come out to Budd's farm, between
Godcrich and Bayfield, to pick up the produce he has
grown for them. It's a way of not only cutting out the
middle man, but of bridging the gap between the producer
of food and the consumer.
Budd first became aware of the CSA concept four years
ago, shortly after he moved to the area. He saw an
advertisement in the local newspaper by a group interested
in starting a project. Hc'd never heard of the concept but
went to the meeting to hear more from Dave Parsons who
had seen CSAs in operation in the northeastern United
States.
Under the concept, a group of people who want an
alternative to getting their food off the supermarket shelf
organizes and pools resources. They decide what they want
grown and make an arrangement with someone to grow the
food. They buy a share (or more) in the enterprise and are
entitled to the proportion of the harvest that share
represents. If there are 30 shares, for example, the harvest
is split 30 ways.
There were about a dozen people at that first meeting in
Godcrich, Budd recalls. Listening to the concept outlined
he had his doubts. Knowing human nature he didn't think
the whole thing would work, he remembers. But he hadn't
figured out what he was going to do on his new farm and
since he came from a market gardening background, he _
Bob Budd tends part of the crop on his Goderich-area farm. After being
skeptical about Community Shared Agriculture he's now a fan.
26 THE RURAL VOICE