Time to Buy Your CSA Memberships!

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.

Continue reading »

Filed under Agritourism, Cooperatives, Future Planning, Rural Development | Comment (0)

25 Alternative Energy Strategies - 5

In this, the last five items in the list of 25 strategies, a look at community efforts to become self-sufficient is in order. While an energy self-sufficient homestead can exist in any rural environment, the more neighbors (no matter how spread out) who catch the bug, the more resources are available to be developed for the good of all. It’s the natural ‘next step’ in extending the idea of energy self-sufficiency toward the broader society.

The real “trick” in items 21-25 are the collective will to work together and agree upon sustainable agricultural, building, energy production and distribution practices.

Part 5: Collective Strategies for Communities

When FDR was elected President in 1932 - in the midst of the Great Depression - he addressed the awful situation by means of the “New Deal.” Tucked away in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 which established the huge public works programs, was the Subsistence Homestead Communities project. The plan was to relocate some of the idled workers from over-populated industrial areas into planned subsistence communities they would build for themselves with government money.

Read about the Cumberland Homesteads project for yourself, it gives a rough idea of the rewards community development can reap, even if the whole thing is privately financed by the motivated homesteaders themselves (as it must be today). Sure, there are many grants available for rural community development (such as state agri-tourism initiatives) when there is someone skilled in applying, from all sorts of government agencies federal and state. And some resources available from corporate largesse these days as well.

Continue reading »

Filed under Alternatives, Community, Cooperatives, Energy, Future Planning, Homestead, Independence, Rural Development | Comments (4)