My housemates and I are planning to get a farm share at a local CSA (community supported agriculture) this summer. The main options I’ve found for the Amherst area are Simple Gifts Farm, Riverland Farm, Brookfield Farm, Stone Soup Farm, and Foodbank Farm. Here is some info on each one.
Community Supported Agriculture
Many small farms offer “farm shares” where you pay a set fee and in return receive a weekly share of their crops. Typically this comes to about ten pounds of vegetables. Rather than picking and choosing the few vegies that you want, instead you get whatever is in season. By giving some guaranteed revenue to the farm for the summer, you support your local farms, plus you get fresh, usually organic produce from a local source. This will be the first time anyone in my house has done this, so hopefully we will find a use for some of the more unusual vegetables they grow.
I’ve listed the price for a full (2-4 people) and half (1-2 people) share at each farm. Most of them have a sliding payment scale so that some people can pay more to subsidize the share price of lower income folk.
Simple Gifts Farm
This is probably the one we will end up using because it is literally right down the street from us (now that’s local!). The pickup days are Tuesday and Thursday in the afternoon. The Simple Gifts Farm has been around since 1999, but they just moved their main operations to the farmland right in North Amherst (about a mile north of UMass) last year. If I read their website right, they have 38 acres of land and are in the process of being certified as organic (which takes a season because they changed locations).
- full share – $400-500
- half share – $225-275
- http://www.simplegiftsfarmcsa.com
Riverland Farm
This 18 acre farm is further north in Sunderland and has pickup on Thursday and Saturday. I have known several people who used Riverland in the past and they are very happy with it.
- full share – $400-490
- half share – $300-390
- http://www.riverlandfarm.com
Brookfield Farm
This farm is in South Amherst, and provides CSA shares not only for locals, but for people in the Boston area. They have pickup Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
- full share – $465
- http://www.brookfieldfarm.org/
Stone Soup Farm
Over in Belchertown, this farm has pickup saturday mornings. Looks like they are sold out of shares for this season.
- full – $400-550
- half – $250-300
- http://stonesoupfarm.googlepages.com/csadetails
Food Bank Farm
This one has also already sold out of memberships.
More options
The Farm Fresh.org site has even more listings of local farms across the country.