August 2008

• Introduction
• The popularity of local food
• Electric co-ops are “partners”
• Connecting people and food
• Download the full article as a

The popularity of local food

CSAs, which sprang up in Japan and Europe before appearing in the U.S., have grown along with the nationwide trend toward locally-grown, often organic food. Localharvest.com, a national Web site devoted to locally grown and organic agriculture, reported some 50 in 1990. Now, there are more than that in North Carolina alone. The Pittsboro-based Carolina Farm Stewardship Association’s online guide to local and organic farms lists 56, up from 41 in 2006.

The demand is far outstripping the number of CSAs. Kathleen Purvis, the food editor of The Charlotte Observer, recently got up early to buy eggs from one farmer at a farmers market, only to find his supply limited because the rest was reserved for his CSA customers. “Want to sign up to be on that CSA, too?” she asked in an Observer column. “Too bad, Bertha—get in line.”

When New Town Farms, one of North Carolina’s CSA pioneers, had four openings this year, it filled them from a waiting list of more than 75 people.

Elizabeth Gibbs of Firefly Farm in Celo advises people who want to join a CSA to do it at the end of the previous year’s growing season. Even though her farm added 16 new slots this year, she soon found herself saying all too often, “I’m sorry. We’re filled.”