CSA – Community Supported Agriculture. The CSA ‘movement’ in my state (North Carolina) organized, promoted and maintained per resources and educational materials by the state’s Cooperative Extension Service, the outreach arm of the state’s Department of Agriculture and land grant universities. It’s all about small farms, sustainable agriculture, natural and organic methods, and best marketing practices for what is produced.

CSA member farms offer fruit and vegetables, flowers and landscaping plants, eggs, milk (dairies specialize in cows or goats) and cheese, pasture-fed meat, and some even participate in the AgriTourism initiatives to bring urban families and tourists out to the farms for tours and work opportunities. Consumers can purchase from favored producers at local farmer’s markets, or do what we do – buy a “share” of the coming season’s crops in the spring when the farmer needs the funding to cover seeds and the costs of getting the crop in and going.

Different producers work differently for their shares, so choose a CSA close to home in case you are expected to come to the farm to pick up your boxes and bags of goodies. At some CSAs you’ll get to pick your own strawberries, peaches, apples, etc. when they’re ripe, the farm will let you know when that happens so you can make plans. Some have workshops that let you get some close-up training on bee keeping or cheese making, even learn how to milk a goat!

There’s nothing better than getting to know your food producer personally, and getting some important hands-on opportunities to learn how it’s done, maybe put that to work in your own garden. Even better, the ability to purchase good, natural or organic produce, meat, eggs, milk, cheese, etc. from local producers will cut your food budget significantly. Prices are rising fast at the supermarket, and supermarket produce isn’t very tasty anyway.

Joining a CSA or two every season allows the homesteader to focus on producing just what they can’t get easily or cheaply from other producers in their area. It also allows the homesteader to hook up with other homesteaders and old-timers who know everything about everything in your particular area. In my experience the old-timers love nothing better than to answer questions from committed newcomers, and will often offer practical advice and encyclopedic knowledge of what it takes to survive on the land.

I easily found the CSAs in my area by doing a Google search on “CSA NC” which returned the Extension Service’s useful website. The same should work for your state too, so make use of it! Now’s the time to buy your shares, or get the lowdown on what will be available through the farmer’s market in your area, where to find your favored growers. So get on it, gang!

I’ve been looking around at vacation ideas, delighted to discover a nifty partnership and grant program involving folks like the Ag department, the cooperative extension services, the park and forest services and even state and local arts councils, which they’re cleverly calling “Agritourism”. It’s really quite the innovative way to put some capital and ideas to work in the rural sector. Innovative, that is, unless you’re old enough to remember the Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal.

I know that a lot of committed homesteaders spend their vacation time working on the ‘stead instead of jaunting off to ski in Switzerland or tromping through the Amazon, but it’s really nice to take a few days off and at least get off the property for awhile. And the best part of supporting initiatives like agritourism is that it’s really, truly Green!

Even better, it’s Green without costing a bundle. It always seems kind of funny to me when things show up in my searches (this time it was “green vacations”) that simply don’t apply to anybody I know or hope to know in the idle rich jet-setter category. Ah, well. Maybe “Green” jet-setting is a new fad like bottled water – you know, the dumb things people do to look really cool without a thought to whether it’s actually cool or not. For instance…

From About.com I got a return entitled Top 10 Green Vacation Ideas. I’m advised to use the Swiss train system when I go skiing in the Alps. Check. Then a suggestion to book an eco-friendly hotel – with link to The Tides Riviera Maya Resort & Spa in Mexico. Check. The best advice is to skip the Galapagos and Amazonian rain forest even though ‘everybody’ wants to go there, because they’re “ecologically fragile.” Check. Somehow I don’t think these suggestions were meant for people like me…

So I checked a return on MSNBC that informs me ecotourism might be just as environmentally damaging as regular old everyday tourism. Once again the primary subject is how much actual travel is required to get to those “…lush national parks [in other countries] and exotic islands that attract the environmentally minded.” Odd, that. Every homesteader I’ve ever known was “environmentally minded” long before the rich and beautiful jumped on the bandwagon. Huh.

Green Living Ideas had some quite good ideas, still aimed at the jet-setters who jaunt off to the Himalayas or Machu Picchu for the weekend. Seems like my own ideas to take advantage of the clever “Art and Farm Trails” in my own state are better. We can stay at a nice small rural town B&B or even camp in a state park (all trails include at least one), go from there to a local arts and crafts festival or seafood fest, visit organic farms and wineries, pick our own apples or peaches or blueberries, take some cool lessons on the best cheap feed for free range chickens and how to best separate the cream from goat’s milk, then make cheese without using genetically engineered bacteria. Then on to ride a ferry and tour a lighthouse or two, take a hike or go fishing at the park. Sounds like a perfectly lovely week to me.

Some of my grandkids think this homestead is the perfect vacation spot. They’re right, but that doesn’t mean I’m on vacation when they’re here during the summer! The grandson who lives here doesn’t ever seem to want to go anywhere else, but I’ll bet we can talk him into it. He’s quite artistic, and one of the trails has potters’ studios and artists who will let him dig right into the clay!

At any rate, it’s good to start thinking about getting away from it all for a few days this summer if you can. And I’m thinking that by supporting the agritourism initiative in my state I’ll also get the chance to meet and exchange knowledge with other farmers and homesteaders and artists and crafters close enough to where I live to maybe share ideas and work together.

Check out some of the more innovative agritourism partnership projects at Homegrown and Handmade. Then do a search on it in your state, see what the offerings are. We can’t lose here, and I’m thinking I’ll have to do more research on some of the grants. Like one that will pay me not to mess with the mountainside of black cohosh because it’s endangered (I wasn’t messing with it anyway, so I might as well get paid!). Maybe sign up to host some tourists eager to learn how to manage ginseng and goldenseal in native forest as cash crops, how to make basalmic wine vinegar from native muscodines, or charge ‘em a buck or two to tour the culinary herb operation I’m planning to establish…

Not to mention the fact that some of those grants might just pay for the culinary herb operation too. You never know, I might someday BE an agritourist trap in the eco-tourism trade!

Links:

Ag Marketing Resource Center: Agritourism

Tennessee Agritourism Initiative

Agritourism in Kentucky

Oklahoma Agritourism

UC: Agritourism and Nature Tourism in California

NC: HomegrownHomemade

Agritourism Partnerships in Illinois