Support Agriculture In Your Community

Over the last 20 years, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a "membership" or a "subscription") and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.
That's all there is to it.
At the Eagle Rock Plaza's Sunday morning farmer's market a box of CSA produce costs $15.00 and is filled with melons and okra and squash and greens and herbs and cucumbers -- more than enough produce for two people.
Our particular CSA is the South Central Farmers' Cooperative based out of, you guessed it, South Central Los Angeles. The South Central Farmers' CSA program started on a 14 acre piece of property on Alameda at 41 Street and now links locally grown produce to all members of Los Angeles, regardless of race, ethnicity, background, and economic status. By the way, those original 14 acres were bulldozed in 2006 to doubtless make room for yet another empty lot in South Central Los Angeles.
Local farmers need our support and we need organically grown produce. It's that simple. Check it out. Find a farmers' market near you and then locate the CSA booth.
You'll be doing yourself and the planet a favor.