CSAs and Food Stamps
by Vicki Tardif
Last year, I did a lot of reading about CSAs. Much of the literature pointed to the benefits of joining: supporting local agriculture, reducing your carbon footprint, and understanding the chemicals (if any) that are used to grow your vegetables. But, one of the nagging questions I had was cost. If getting my produce from a CSA costs significantly more than what I pay at my local grocery store, then CSAs will never be more than a fad for the affluent. Any viable solution must be affordable to lower- and middle-class Americans.
When we joined the CSA last spring, I hoped that we would break even, but to be honest, I was not sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised when we did the analysis and found that we actually saved money by joining the CSA. Granted, this was data from one CSA over one growing season, but it showed that it is not outside the realm of possibility to get organic, locally-grown vegetables for less than it costs to buy similar items at the grocery store.
With that said, I appreciate that we are in a position that many Americans are not: we were able to pay for our groceries up front. Most CSAs require that members pay at the beginning of the season, so that they can purchase seeds and other supplies to plant their crops. It took some shuffling, but we were able to come up with the membership fee without too large a hardship. For many Americans, particularly the working poor, this is impossible. For this reason, I still struggle with the idea of CSAs being the be-all and end-all of answers to the question of how we feed a nation.
Uprising Farm in Bellingham, Washington is working on a solution to this problem that works for both the farm and local people on federal food stamps. The farm applied to the USDA to qualify to accept Electronic Benefit Transfers (EBT). Federal food stamps are issued on electronic cards that resemble a credit card. As part of the program, Uprising Farm received a card reader. Every week, members swipe their EBT cards, and the food stamp funds are automatically transferred to the farm.
Unfortunately, the program does not completely fit the CSA model. The USDA does not allow contracts for food purchases; instead, the food stamps must be used week-to-week. Uprising Farm had to apply to the USDA as a “farm stand”. The farm still considers all of these people to be “members”, but it is unclear to me if Uprising Farm still functions as a CSA. One of the chief benefits to CSA farmers is that they are guaranteed an income at the beginning of the season. Under this model, that guarantee no longer holds. For this reason, I do not expect most CSAs to following Uprising Farm’s lead, but this sort of creative thinking is what will lead to better answers to the question of how we feed a nation while still protecting our environment.
on February 7th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Interesting.
In (somewhat) related news–that is, news suggesting institutions adapting to the possibility of global warming, there’s this:
It seems Wall Street is realizing that investing in coal-fired power plants is a bad long-term strategy, and that a cap on carbon emissions is inevitable. Three of the biggest investment banks — Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley — announced this week that they’re creating new environmental standards that will make it more difficult for companies to secure investments for new coal-fired power plants. The standards will require utility companies seeking funds to build new plants to demonstrate that the plants will be economically viable under carbon constraints, and mandates that new plants take actions to be more energy-efficient, incorporate renewable energy sources, or put in place carbon capture and storage technology. The fact that major financial institutions are realizing that coal is becoming an expensive, dirty habit is very good news in the battle against climate change.
on March 10th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Vicki,
Thanks for including us in your discussion about CSA’s and their real viability beyond fad. This is exactly what we are trying to address with our model.
In response to your wondering about how this works as a CSA and how this works for us, for the most part it is essientially no different than the traditional model. What we did was raise a revolving seed fund though local fundraising of our own both private and grant money from the local food coop. We pay ourselves the full share price of each share committed at the beginning of the season (as a sort of loan to ourselves) and repay the “loan” and seed money back over the course of the season with weekly EBT deposits.
While it is not a “contract debt” that the EBT members pay, we make it clear to them that their consitstency in seeing the program through the full season is what allows it to succeed and the project to be successful. So far we have had 100% retention through the season. Its true that there is some risk as members are under no obligation to us other than a gentlemans agreement, unlike a traditional CSA where their money down is their commitment, but I think what we are doing tends to attract people that are seeking such a thing in their lives anyway.
One of our further motivations for this model is that we place a great inportance on farmers getting fair price for their product. To us, as the growers, with this program we recieve the full benefit of all the positive attributes of a normal CSA.
As to the value for the “member” our share values tend to end up some where between wholesale and retail price for the produce recieved so it is a significant savings from equivalent store or farmers market prices.
Thanks for your posting and thoughts on the subject.
Cheers
Brian Campbell
Uprising Organics
Bellingham, WA