Porter Farm CSA

During the meeting today I mentioned that my wife and I participate in a CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and basically means you pay a set fee to "subscribe" to a farm and then each week during the season you get a bag of produce from that farm. (Their are pick-up points throughout the Rochester area.) For more information about CSAs in general see the following websites:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture

The CSA we participate in is through Porter Farms (no relation).

http://www.porterfarms.org/

It is $340 for the ~20-week season (June through Nov). Last year we split ours with some friends and it worked out well. This year we're thinking of going alone as we're trying to increase our fruit/vegetable consumption. My wife is vegetarian so it works out well for us. Among the advantages of CSAs from our perspective is:

• encourages us to eat lots of veggies
• gets us to try new things
• if you would otherwise buy lots of organic veggies, represents a cost savings
• produce is grown locally, so it is fresh and good for the environment
• support local farms

Oh, and every week the bag includes a little newsletter about the happenings on the farm and a recipe for something health to make with the contents of that week's bag.

Update:
I found an additional Rochester-area CSA, Genesee Valley Organic Community Supported Agriculture.

http://www.gvocsa.org/