CSAs: Sustainable Food

The New York Times ran an article about community supported agriculture (CSA). My wife and I are on our second year as members of Vermont Valley CSA. We have had a very positive experience with it.

• We get organic food for a reasonable price.
• The food is grown locally, so less fuel is needed for transportation. Fuel is cheap, even with today's higher oil prices, but the price doesn't include environmental and political costs. It's better to conserve if you can.
• It helps keep farmland from being paved over by suburban sprawl. Wisconsin has some of the best farmland in the world. Once it's paved over, it's gone forever.
  
• We get whatever they grow. This encourages us to try new foods.
• Weather events such as floods, early/late frosts, and droughts affect how much food we get and remind us how connected we are to nature.
  
• There are events for adults to pick some extra food for their own use and for kids to learn about how a farm works.
  

The freezer fills up in the fall and empties by spring. The season started late this year, but the freezer is starting to fill.

The only downside is that storing and cooking the food takes much more time compared to heating the factory-made food I ate before I got married. I am fortunate my wife enjoys cooking so much.

I just checked her blog about saving money looking for something on frugality and cooking, and I discovered she had almost exactly the same comments. I didn't even know she had seen the same NYT article as I did, but evidently she read it and beat me to it. For pracitcal ideas on saving money using a CSA, check out her article "Get Your Own Farmer".