Full Circle Farm's CSA Program  
Become a CSA Pick Up Site  

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is a relatively new socio-economic model of food production, sales, and distribution aimed at both increasing the quality of food and the quality of care given the land, plants and animals. CSA generally is the practice of focusing on the production of high quality foods using ecological, organic or biodynamic farming methods. This kind of farming operates with a much greater-than-usual degree of involvement of consumers and other stakeholders—resulting in a stronger than usual consumer-producer relationship. Typically, CSA farms are small, independent, labor-intensive, family farms. Consumers essentially help finance farming operations, which allows farmers to focus on quality growing

An advantage of the close consumer-producer relationship is increased freshness of the produce, because it does not have to be shipped long distances. The close proximity of the farm to the members also helps the environment by reducing pollution caused by transporting the produce. CSA's often include recipes and farm news in each box. Tours of the farm and work days are announced. Over a period of time, consumers get to know who is producing their food, and what production methods are used.

According to most sources, community supported agriculture began in the early 1960s in Germany, Switzerland, and Japan as a response to concerns about food safety and the urbanization of agricultural land. Groups of consumers and farmers in Europe formed cooperative partnerships to fund farming and pay the full costs of ecologically sound, socially equitable agriculture. In Europe many of the CSA style farms were inspired by the economic ideas of Rudolf Steiner and experiments with community agriculture took place on farms using biodynamic agriculture. In 1965, mothers in Japan concerned about the rise of imported food and the loss of arable land started the first CSA projects, called teikei in Japanese - most likely unrelated to the developments in Europe.

Full Circle Farm’s CSA Program

Full Circle Farm's farm-fresh organic delivery service has been recognized as one of the most successful Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in the nation. Joining our CSA is a way to connect directly with a local farm, and receive regular deliveries of fresh, delicious, healthy organic produce.

People who join the program receive a weekly or biweekly box of farm-fresh foods conveniently delivered to their workplace or a neighborhood host site. Each week on delivery day the pick up site becomes a community hub for good food and healthy lifestyles as people stop by to pick up their boxes of organic groceries.

CSA programs like ours help reconnect consumers to small farms in the face of an increasingly industrialized food system. As people become more and more interested in where their food comes from and how it was grown, CSAs are an increasingly popular option for getting high-quality food from a trusted local farm.

Full Circle's CSA program is the cornerstone of our farm business, and in its ten years of operation has been able to offer members a growing list of unique benefits:

• Year-round Service — By teaming up with other organic farms, in addition to our own produce, Full Circle's CSA delivers fresh, seasonal food all year long.
• Customized Contents — CSA boxes can be customized to meet individual tastes or a family's needs through easy online modifications.
• Specialty "Green Grocery" Items — Members can order premium sustainable grocery items to be added their box including extra organic produce, local organic eggs, artisan breads, coffee, organic chocolate and more.
• Vacation Holds — An email or call is enough to temporarily suspend delivery.

Become a CSA Pick Up Site

It's easy to host a pick up site. Full Circle's team handles all the logistics. Host sites are not responsible for taking payments or dealing with farm-related questions. Deliveries are made at the same time each week. Boxes are neatly stacked and unclaimed boxes are picked up by our staff after the designated pick up hours and donated to a local food bank.

Benefits of Being a Pick Up Site:

• If you are a business, your employees will thank you for this convenient new benefit -- healthy groceries delivered to the office each week!
• Each week, CSA delivery day will remind your employees and patrons that your business or agency is committed to the community and to supporting local farms.
• Becoming a pick up site can bring new foot traffic into your agency or place of business, exposing more people in the community to your programs and your values.
• Schools, daycare facilities and community centers that serve as pick up sites receive regular donations of our organic produce for use in their programs.

If you would like to sign up to become a pick up site, or would like more info, give us a call at 425.333.4677 or use our contact form to send us a note.

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