This summer, MS, a colleague who does cool research on the formation of NGO networks, first called to our attention something I'd only vaguely heard about: Community Supported Agriculture or CSA. This is when community members buy shares in local farms and in turn reap the bounty. It's like food stock, and it's a small way to resist big corporate farming that has all but taken over. Each week, 'shareholders' go to a designated location to pick up that week's share. MS even offered us her week's share in a Champaign CSA program when she was out of town in early June. We stopped by a place on Union street and got gooseberries and snap peas and lovely young onions.
This morning, we bought a share in the Urbana CSA (Moore family farms) which means that next season we'll be picking up the weekly (organic) bounty only four blocks away. One of the reasons we like living in the midwest is that it has the potential for sustainable living with all the farm land, etc., and a CSA is, as far as we can tell, one of the most direct ways to support small farms. So without seeming either smug or overly optimistic, I'm excited for next year's planting.
