It’s no fun outdoors. The wind cuts deep. Even the sun seems cold. The driveway of the farm two hours northwest of the Loop is half mud and half ice.
Buying a portion of a particular farm’s harvest in advance is the essence of community-supported agriculture (CSA), also known as subscription farming. This year Chicago households can buy a “share” in a farm for $350 to $390. (Installment plans, subsidies, and half shares may be available.) In return, they get a bushel-size box of vegetables delivered every week for 16 to 25 weeks to a neighborhood drop-off spot, usually a fellow subscriber’s garage or basement. In June the box might include lettuce, green onions, radishes, and peas; in September melons, kale, tomatoes, and peppers; in November carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and winter squash. Early-season boxes typically weigh a little under ten pounds (greens are lightweights) and late-season boxes a lot more (pumpkins are not).
Why do city people buy in? Not to save money, though CSA vegetables can be cheaper than vegetables bought at a health-food store every week. Subscribers get food that’s as fresh as possible, bred for taste and not shippability, and grown locally, without synthetic chemicals and in harmony with the “subtle natural energies” biodynamic adherents believe in.
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“I don’t know anything about farming. I just wanted to eat good food. I was amazed–in a city this size, am I doing this for the first time?”
The three community-supported farms selling to Chicagoans this year are all north of town, small compared to the more-than-300-acre Illinois average, and run by people who are easy to talk to.
