What in the CSA?
Years ago Rich and I managed a farm on the tip of Michigan's thumb. Being in a seasonal lake town, we got to know the year-rounders pretty quickly. You were part of this 'tough enough' club if you stuck around the lake when inches and then feet of snow began to fall. When Huron began to thaw out, the summer folks would come to market, filling their baskets with whatever we could grow. That tightly knit and supportive community inspired us to offer csa memberships to our regulars and those who wanted to become regular. csa, csa, csa...
WHAT is csa?!...ugh. If only we as a farming community could start over with a new name. Community. Supported. Agriculture: A bit of a bureaucratic acronym that runs the risk of eliciting a yawn before it's defined. But keep those tails bushy...a csa is a special relationship that farmers have with their repeat customers. Said folks buy shares of a farm's goods in advance and receive their allotment of the harvest over the course of the season. Throughout our underling years, we worked for various farmers who used a box csa model. Pay for a share and pick up a box of seasonal produce every week. What we noticed when running csa pick up day, was that people wanted less of this veg and more of that. OR they would be out of town and send a friend to pick up, or even miss pick up completely. And after hours spent packing these boxes that weren't necessarily satisfactory, we got to thinking...
Rich's econ brain dreamt up a credit-based csa model, capable of satisfying more people (and ourselves) and allowing flexibility to have a spontaneous schedule. We launched this up in Michigan and now use it here at Foxhole. Folks pay $200 for a share. This buys them $220 worth of credit to spend with us during the year. Their credit can be spent on anything we bring to the table...seasonal produce, microgreens, sourdough breads of all varieties, pastries, floral jellies, our merchandise...and perhaps shiitakes and eggs this year :). Csa members can shop ANYTIME they want. Thanks to that danged virus, we got an online shop up and running so that not only can a customer use their credit at our farmers market booth during market season, they can also order weekly (year round) on our site for weekend pick up.
Look, when you run a scrappy small business whose costs are largely all spent in the first quarter of the year, you get crafty. We are so grateful for the farmers who paved the way and got wise enough to develop some of these models that help farmers to make it to that glorious harvest season...even if they did devise an obscure acronym in this case.
We sure hope that those good Daytonites who buy a share or more with us enjoy the dynamic we have with them. Our csa customers are the primary ones we look to to help decide where to go next in this tremendous venture of ours. It's like we get to be a part of another family...one in which people bring you hot tea or Hot Hands warmers when you're manning the outdoor produce pick up in January. Or share some of their home canned delights with you...or a winter supper! Or even spitball orcharding ideas with you. Some even go so far as to bring hand-me-down books and art supplies for the kids. Is it obvious that I love these people?