Community Supported Agriculture - CSA

The story of the Farms of Tomorrow

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers a way for every human being to be directly involved in the care and healing of the earth, while also ensuring a supply of clean, healthy food for their families and their neighbors.

I have been reporting on community supported agriculture since its inception in the United States in 1986. In those days I was the Organic Outlook farm and garden correspondent for The Monadnock Ledger in Peterborough, NH.

The first two CSA experiments started nearby that summer in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. They naturally drew my interest. I have continued to follow the story over the years -- a story that has enormous importance for North and South America, as well as for many other nations sharing the water, soil, and air of our earth.

Two decades after beginning, CSA farms have blossomed across America, and now form a network of as many as 2,500 organic oases in cities, suburbs, and the heartland. Meanwhile, developing in parallel, many thousands of CSA farms have taken root in other nations of the world.

As a form for communities to be in healthy relation with their local environment, and to provide clean food and dignified work for people, Community Supported Agriculture has clearly arrived.

CSA farms support the communities they are part of with healthy food; in turn the farms are supported by the families who belong to them, and who eat the food they produce.

CSA farms make good sense economically, ecologicaly, socially, and spiritually. Consequently, they are continuing to multiply and evolve in new and improved ways.

All of this and much, much more is covered, and expaned upon, in my new book  agrarianism that I have begun writing, I have initiated a new blog: The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century (2009, Norlights Press).

Follow the links on this page to learn more about CSA and agrarian matters in general.

- Steven McFadden

"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from a furnace." - Aldo Leopold

Essays and Reports on CSA by Steven McFadden

Farms of Tomorrow Revisited

CSA Farms and the Sacred Hoop

Community Farms in the 21st Century: Poised for Another Wave of Growth? - A two part article on the history and development of CSA in the USA.

The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century

Resources:
How to find a CSA Farm near you

The Community Farm Newsletter

Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association

Local Harvest

The original CSA book - Updated and expanded:

Farms of Tomorrow Revisited

Community Supported Farms --- Farm-Supported Communities

by Trauger Groh and Steven McFadden

Farms of Tomorrow Revisited is the dynamic sequel to the book that set out the inspirational blueprint for the first community farms in America. Now it is serving as a guide for the growing CSA movement to expand into new stages of development.

The authors provide a penetrating theoretical overview, resources, and practical examples that are of high value to any person or group interested in ensuring a clean, healthy, and abundant supply of food, and renewing the health of our earth.

The book contains essays on the economic, legal and spiritual questions surrounding the CSA movement, and a fact-filled exploration of the context and scope of community farms. The farm biographies of ten working community farms are updated from 1990, so that readers may understand how and why they grew and changed over eight years of experience.

Expanded appendices give readers all the tools they need to explore land acquisition, network building, and supporting a farm that supports the community.

Over 2,000 US communities have built and are prospering with CSA farms. Thousands of CSAs are now prospering in other nations. More to come...

Whole Earth Review on Farms of Tomorrow:“This is the best book to access to the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement. Philosophical, spiritual, practical essays and how-to (including financial discussions). This is the source for tools, organizations, farms, and networks concerning the renewal of agriculture.”

Resurgence Magazine on Farms of Tomorrow: “It is rare to come across any practical farming guide that sets out, from its inception, a set of principles that embrace social, spiritual and economic concerns on completely equal terms…The wisdom and clarity of philosophy are striking throughout.”

To learn more about CSA in general, check the list of CSA resources on the Chiron links page.

How to order
Farms of Tomorrow Revisited: Community Supported Farms, Farm-Supported Communities

ISBN # 093825013-2 ($17.50 US/ $26.25 CAN)

Order online directly: Amazon.com

Ask at your local bookstore.

Order by phone and credit card from:

Chelsea Green Inc. (distributor)
1-800-639-4099