This past weekend, my husband and I signed up for a CSA. CSA stands for “Community Shared Agriculture.” Basically, you sign up to share the yield, and the risk, of a local farm or ranch. If the farm or ranch does well, you have quite the bounty. In leaner times your share will be a little smaller. It’s a good model and benefits both parties. A farmer has money up front to invest into their farm while the person investing in the share often gets far more produce for the money than they would by buying individual items at the farmer’s market.
We signed up with Koch Ranches which operates out Yancey, Texas, which is 12 miles south of Hondo. They’re a family that’s been farming for a long time. We got to meet Tony and his grandson, Kyle, this weekend. Kyle’s quite the budding business and very professional for his age! According to their listing on the Quarry Farmer’s Market, Kyle will be the seventh generation of farmers in their family. They specialize in grass-fed meats; beef, wild boar, venison, lamb and goat. They also have their own orchards and they plant vegetables between the trees, which I suspects help shade the young plants from the direct sun and reduce water use – but that’s just a guess.
So what comes in a CSA Box? How about...
Now, this is just SOME of the produce from our CSA this week. When we were deciding if we should go with a full or half share, I asked Cheryl about how much would be included. She gave me a list that included 1-2 pattypan squashes and 5-6 crookneck squashes, 1 “large” cantaloupe, and so on. What Cheryl didn’t mention is that this is Texas-sized farm-grown produce! That cantaloupe in the back right corner weighed in at about 6 pounds, and some of those crooknecks tipped the kitchen scale at nearly a pound a quarter each. Not shown in the above photo are the eggplant, pattypan squash and three crooknecks that we gave to my mother-in-law, as well as the onions that just kept wanting to roll around. In addition to the produce, we also got a very lovely T-bone steak, a chuck roast, and some ground beef – all naturally raised, grass fed, and animal welfare/humane certified.
The real kicker is that a trip to Whole Foods would break the bank, but this? Sure, there’s an upfront investment. There’s the $50 one-time membership fee and the the 10 week period runs at $550 for a full, mixed share of both meat and produce. Every other week one of my meats will be replaced with a dozen farm-fresh eggs. But that means that the majority of my in-season, locally-grown, farm fresh produce and meat is going to run me what works out to $55 a week. There will be very little that I’ll actually need at the grocery aside of dairy, drinks and things like trash bags and soap. We’ll be eating healthier, eating local, and saving a bundle while helping supporting local agriculture. I’ve gotten to talk to Cheryl via email, and she’s been great about answering all my questions. That’s the other part of a CSA – developing a direct relationship with the very people who are growing the food that ends up on your plate. It’s a winning deal all the way around.
If you’re interested in finding a CSA in your area, check out the link for Local Harvest on the sidebar to the left. If you’re in the SanAntonio area and you’re interested in Koch Ranches, you can find their CSA information here.