Community Supported Agriculture

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a phenomenon that had become more and more common in the last 20 years.

CSA‘s provide the opportunity for people to receive fresh local products directly from the farmers. The most common kind of CSA is a vegetable/produce CSA but there are other CSA’s offered like meat, meat/produce combination, and fresh cut flowers.

A CSA, simply, works through a strong customer/farmer relationship. Generally, customers will buy a share or membership to join the CSA. Shares are limited but vary depending on the CSA. A designated day and time is set aside each week for the farm to meet his/her members with a bag or box of fresh local products.

There are many wonderful advantages of a CSA for both the farmers and the consumers. CSA’s provide people with healthy, fresh, flavorful products. In addition members of CSA often become friendly with the farmer and get to visit the farm to see where their food is grown and learn more about the process. Farmers also benefit from CSA’s because the advance payments help cash flow on the farm. Also, it is nice for farmers to know their customers likes and dislikes.

Due to popular demands of Lilly Den’s Natural Meats and at the request of our customers, we are starting a 27 week meat CSA to provide our community with a constant supply of natural meat throughout the fall, winter, and spring seasons. The CSA will provide you with a variety of meats including beef, pork, goat, lamb, veal, and poultry.

Lilly Den Farm is proud to be providing a variety of meat to our customers throughout the fall and winter months through a meat CSA. We a thrilled to have a way of providing our products to our customers while the seasonal farmers markets aren’t open.

Lilly Den CSA will be structured as followed

Members can sign-up for one of the following; $20, $30, $40, or $50 worth of meat per week. Special ordering will be available for larger amounts. The variety of meats will rotate in a four week cycle. Week one you will receive beef, week two you will receive pork, week three you will have a choice of veal, lamb or goat, and week four you will receive poultry. The remaining weeks will follow this pattern. Members will be given the option to sign up for as few as two varieties of meat or all varieties. If you choose to sign up for less than all the varieties of meats, your shares will be substituted for the varieties you chose. Of course, weekly variety rotation is subject to change due to meat supply.

Pick up dates will be determined as we get closer to the fall season and pick up locations will be determined based on customer’s location.

Payment

First payment of one third of you total 27 week purchase will be due one week before first pick-up, which can be paid for on our website, mailed directly to Lilly Den Farm or dropped off at one of our pick-up locations. The second third of your payment will be paid at pick-up of week eight and the final third of your payment will be paid at pick-up of week 17. If you wish to pay in full the week before week one you will receive 5% off your total purchase. All payments can be made on our website.

If you are interested in becoming a member of our CSA you can sign up on our website. If you have any questions feel free to contact Tucker at (919) 356-5330 or send us an email.

Source: localharvest.org