Organic Food Sales Continue to Soar – Join a local CSA!
As a farmer’s daughter raised on traditional production agriculture, I had a hard time a few year’s ago understanding the total organic food movement. Now, I realize it’s all about choice!
My mission in life is to help family farms succeed and grow their businesses through direct sales, and more specifically, by inviting the public to their farms to purchase their products and engage in on-farm activities. The word for this specialized type of producer is an “agritourism” operator.
Many conventional and organic producers today engage in agritourism, as well as those selling their products direct through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscription program such as Tangerinis Farm in Massachusetts or Family Farm Fresh in Visalia, California. Therefore, whether consumers make a choice of organic production versus conventionally grown, they are always supporting local farmers.
Once the public takes this to the next step and realizes that purchasing locally produced fresh food is better for both them and the environment than the “shipped in” fruits and vegetables – we all win! The Organic Trade Association just reported that sales of organic food rose by 15.8% in 2008. This continues a double digit growth for organic food sales for over the past decade.
Often the biggest challenges for consumers is to find these local food producers–whether they sell on farm, at a farmer’s market or direct through a CSA. I’d like to suggest two websites that will help you find local producers as well as agritourism providers. Local Harvest is an online database directory helping you find organic producers anywhere in the United States. Rural Bounty is an online North American database directory that features both types of farm producers, as well as an easy way to find those offering agritourism activities.
The bottom line – by supporting your local family farms you are helping them sustain themselves. The choice is yours!
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