Above: Native Offerings members pick up their weekly vegetables in Amherst.
With spring just around the corner, some Western New Yorkers who are interested in eating locally raised organic vegetables are signing up for farm shares.
It’s called community supported agriculture, or CSA. Subscribers share in the risk and rewards of the farming season. If the Japanese eggplant gets wiped out by beetles, there’ll be none in the share. But if the beets go great guns you’ll see more of the purple darlings.
There are two CSA farms we know of in Western New York, both welcoming members this spring. Both provide weekly selections of vegetables to distribution sites in Amherst, Buffalo and other area sites. (The Porter Farms share requires members to drive to Elma and do the pickup for their site once or twice a season.)
To be sure, it’s not for everybody. If getting better food is something you’re not comfortable expending more effort on, you might get frustrated. People who re-subscribe think it’s worth the investment for the high-quality food (like tatsoi, a versatile Asian green, at left), and the chance to support a local farmer.
First off, you need to make your weekly pickup in a window of a few hours, or make sure someone else does for you. In a land of 24-hour supermarkets, that seems wrong to some people. But people manage to keep appointments for all sorts of things, so an appointment to get much of your week’s food doesn’t have to sound nuts.
The second hurdle for many is unfamiliar vegetables. If you’re not used to cracking open cookbooks and consulting the Internet to find ways to use items, you will be after you’re faced with the diversity of vegetables you get. Or, you form relationships with people who do, and hand off your kohlrabi.
One of the rewards is discovering vegetables you never knew you could love. Personally, I can’t wait for the local arugula crop to come in, but that’s me.
Porter Farms
Elma N.Y.
585-757-6823
Porterfarms.org
Buffalo-area share $310 for a 22-week share, $20 off for registering before April 15.
Native Offerings Farm
Little Valley, N.Y.
716-257-3006
Nativeofferings.com
Shares available from $220 to $550 for a 22-week summer share. A summer fruit share ($220 for 20 weeks) is also available. Pigs and beef cattle, raised humanely without artificial hormones, available as well.
- Andrew Z. Galarneau