Joining a CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture, is a wonderful way to eat both seasonally and locally while making the commitment to supporting a local farm.
Buying a share means that you are pledging ahead of time, before seeds are even in the ground, to throwing your lot in with that of your farmer. The cost of the share provides financial resources to purchase seed, greenhouse supplies and soil amendments at a time when most storage crops have long been sold and consumed. The moral support that a CSA provides, however, is equally as significant, because the farmer knows that members of the community value the coming harvest and have faith that the seeds will grow!
Local also means you will be spending your money on local people, who will then spend it locally too. You also help to keep local land in production. And last but not least, you get to meet the person who actually grew and/or prepared your food. Ask them, do they use pesticides on their fields? How do they treat their animals? Did they put preservatives in the cookies? These farmers will gladly answer your questions.
For those in the Wayland, Sudbury, Lincoln Framingham area, our friends at EnergizeWayland recommend three beautiful local farms, The Neighborhood Farm in Wayland, Framingham's Stearns Farm, and The Food Project in Lincoln. Check them out below and this list of options across Massachusetts.
The Neighborhood Farm is a small, all natural, vegetable and flower farm in Wayland, MA. We grow a wide range of vegetables, herbs and flowers but we specialize in heirloom tomatoes and garlic. We also grow hundreds and hundreds of varieties of seedlings each spring, and encourage everyone to try growing something. We lease land from Mainstone Farm on Old Connecticut Path, and have an on site, year round Farm Stand. We also attend local farmers markets including Needham, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain.
Stearns Farm CSA is a nonprofit, 2-acre farm located on Edmands Road in Framingham. All of the vegetables, flowers, herbs, and berries are grown using organic methods. Stearns Farm is one of the rare CSAs that allows sharers to participate in the fieldwork, giving them a hands-on opportunity to learn about raising the food they eat. Stearns offers several share options to fit all kinds of life styles and schedules. {check with them to see how COVID is affecting this offering
Food Project’s mission is to create a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system. They provide locally grown, freshly picked produce for purchase through a 20-week CSA share program. The deadline for summer CSA sign up is June 5, 2020. Produce can be picked up 94 Concord Road, Lincoln, MA 01773 on Tuesdays or Thursdays.
Why EnergizeWayland recommends these farms? We've heard good things about them, that simple. If you have a farmshare from them, or from another farm, a Testimonial here, or email info@energizewayland.org. EnergizeWayland does not receive money from any of these farms.
Look for a local farm share or farm stand. Information on several well known to administrators of this site below. If you sign up for a CSA, let us know how it went, by leaving a testimonial on the tab above:
An alternative to buying hyper-local is to buy sustainably farmed food. Though less efficient from a transportation perspective, sustainably grown food is farmed in a manner than preserves and enhances soil organic matter, thereby creating a thriving ecosystem - and healthier, better tasting food. When soil has more organic matter, it can absorb more water, absorb carbon from the atmosphere (helping to fight climate change), reduce soil erosion, and enhance biodiversity. Green Needham compiled a table indicating where one can buy sustainably grown food in each category in its local area.
There are also delivery services for sustainably grown meat shares. Grass fed, pasture raised meat is both better for the environment and better for human health.
Local food has less "food miles" on it, which means less miles that it has to sit in a refrigerated, polluting, gas-guzzling truck to get to your table. According to this source, in the US , conventionally distributed food is often said to travel 1,500 miles from farm to plate, which is responsible for 5 to 17 times more CO2 than local and regionally produced food.
But transportation accounts for only 11 percent of food’s greenhouse gas emissions. The majority of total food emissions happens during its production phase, accounting for a whopping 83 percent of total household emissions worldwide (the majority is non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions such as nitrous oxide and methane emissions).
You can address the production part of the “foodprint” as well by buying local at the market, because local farms are small farms and small farms more readily adopt climate friendly practices that curtail these emissions. They often use less pesticides, rebuild crop and insect diversity, enrich the soil with cover crops, create border areas for wildlife, and produce tastier and more nutritious food. Many small farmers are even working on sequestering carbon!
Local, and hence decentralized production also reduces food safety risks, as long-distance food can potentially be contaminated at many points on its journey to our plates.
Sign In to submit your own story about taking this Action
Sign In to add actions to your todo list or to mark them as complete
Copyright © 2023 All Rights Reserved. Powered by MassEnergize
MassEnergize Community Portal v4.14.20