With farmer markets and CSA farms popping up in cities and towns all across the country, it has never been easier to eat local. Grocery stores, restaurants, and local meat markets have also started carrying more locally grown food, as the demand for locally sourced food grows. CSA farms have also taken a proactive step in allowing people to buy shares of the produce harvested, and bring to places for people in the city for pick up.
Food movement has always been a problem for food distribution in America. By the time produce from a food producing area, like the Midwest, has reached farm poor cities, like Los Angeles, the food is no longer fresh. Additionally, moving food across the country has a huge environmental impact, creating tons of emissions a year. With the increased popularity of organic farmers markets and CSA farms shares, it has become much easier to eat local, environmentally friendly food. Some cities, like Northampton, Massachusetts, have even dedicated small pieces of land to create city wide CSA farms.
There are only a couple of downsides to CSA farms shares, if you can even consider them that. The first is availability. Not every farm has the capabilities to produce enough crops to distribute them all year round. In areas with cold, harvestless winters, that means the CSA farms can only produce 7 or 8 months out of the year. This is not the case for every farm, some are able to store produce for the winter, and some have bounties of squashes and Brussels sprouts to feed their shareholders in the winter. The other possible downside, though others really like the idea, is that many CSA farms require their shareholders to put in time working on the farm. Many people simply do not have the time to dedicate to the one or two days a month that is required.