We’re raising our family in the Upper Valley for many reasons, and having ‘our farm’ is a big one. We aren’t farming ourselves—our weedy lettuces and 7 freeloading hens prove it—‘our farm’ is our nearby Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. Every week as we pick up our veggies, the kids visit baby chicks, choose their favorite carrots, say hi to their adored Farmer C., or sit on the tractor. So far, it’s turned out just the way we wanted (although Farmer C. might have something to say about how much syrup my kids ‘sample’ every March). The kids run free on a working farm, they eat vegetables, they know the life cycles of animals, they see the connection between work and food, they are interested in the success of our neighbor’s business. It’s not a special event, it’s normal.
CSA is one of many ways to build a relationship with a farm, and if you’re ready to consider joining or rejoining one for the summer of 2016, now is the time to find your farm and sign up. It’s easiest to join a CSA farm when the farm or the delivery is on your routes between home, work, and/or school. We’ve made it easier to find a farm on those routes: we just updated the Valley Food & Farm online guide to show you where farms deliver and sell their products. Visit the Guide, search for ‘local food’ and ‘CSA/Farmshare’ to pull up all the farms near you as well as those delivering to locations nearby. Upper Valley farms have a wide variety of prices, products, and payment plans, including many offering subsidized shares. Explore and see if this might be the year to get your family a farm!
Written by Becka Warren, Valley Food & Farm Manager at Vital Communities
