Monday, September 22, 2008

PITTSFIELD CSA HOME DELIVERY

Introducing:

Pittsfield CSA Home Delivery
Of In-Season Locally Grown Fresh Fruits and Vegetables and other Farm Products

Preview Announcement

More and more people want to add fresh nutritious produce to their diets everyday.

What is the opportunity?
•    We can receive a fresh, locally grown, in-season “CSA share of harvest” basket of produce delivered from the farm directly to your kitchen for 20 weeks from June to November during the 2009 growing season.

•    Each basket share contains a diverse selection of 10-15 fresh fruits and vegetables as the crops ripen and are harvested each week over the course of the season*

How does a CSA work?
•    CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) or subscription farming as it is also known is a shared seasonal commitment between a community and a farmer through a pre-season payment for each weekly share of the farms harvest.
•    The advance payment provides the cash flow when it is needed most; to purchase seed, to plant, to cultivate, to harvest, to transport and to deliver the produce.
•    The community shares the risk to the extent of their commitment with the farmers against the loss or damage to the crop throughout the season. This provides the grower with a certain degree of security and supports their sustainability
•    Not to worry, rarely is there ever a total crop loss or failure but in the event it ever happens the farmers know the community is behind them supporting their best efforts.

How does the garden grow?
•    Organic - free of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and fungicides - is the natural, nutrient rich, crop rotating, soil building growing technique that is the most desired
–    Each farm sourced for produce posts their growing methodologies on the web site
–    Quite frankly, there is not enough of the “good stuff” to go around so the “community” will define the accepted practices and policies for the produce secured

What produce can be expected over the course of the season?
*A diverse selection varies weekly
•    Early Season shares might be expected to include: arugula, garlic, radishes, baby salad mix, broccoli, spinach, scallions, kale, beets, bok choy, snap peas, shell peas, Chinese cabbage, turnips, Swiss chard, lettuce, mixed greens, and herbs
•    Summer season: tomatoes, grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, green beans, waxed beans, Italian beans, summer squash, basil, cantaloupe, corn, flowers, broccoli, herbs, eggplant, Asian eggplant, heirloom eggplant, lettuce, sweet peppers, hot peppers, mixed greens, cucumbers, pickling cukes, lemon cukes, onions, cabbage, beans, watermelon, zucchini, carrots
•    Fall season: radishes, cabbage, winter squash –acorn, butternut, sweet dumpling, gourds, cauliflower, onions, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, collards, mixed greens/lettuce, winter kale, sweet potatoes, herbs, beets, Brussel sprouts, and carrots
•    Winter season: the summer season can be extended into November and December with additional storage root crops and leafy green salad mixes and other produce offerings
•    Winter/Spring 2009: a special four season, year-round program may be offered this fall to subscribing members to the Summer 2009 program (TBA)

What is the source of supply?
Pittsfield CSA Home Delivery pursues sustainable relationships with producers of the highest quality, fresh, nutrient rich fruits and vegetables accessible from within and close to the Berkshires. To attract the “best of class” producers, efforts are focused on making it as easy and convenient for farmers to efficiently meet the community’s needs and to reward producers the highest value for fruits and vegetables and other farm products provided.

•    Feeding and eating is an everyday affair.

•    Pittsfield CSA Home Delivery offers a convenient year-round connection between the community and local Berkshire farmers and growers within a 100-mile radius for in-season produce and beyond the region for the freshest produce we can gather in the winter from as close to the Berkshires as possible.

•    This is an opportunity members to know the farmers and growers and for the community to define the food supply’s chain of possession from farms to their households.

What makes this program unique and different?
Pittsfield CSA Home Delivery is a paradigm changing process
•    The Pittsfield CSA Home Delivery is unique in that it is unlike anything that has come before it.

•    Traditionally CSA’s originate at the farm to take the product to the market, this CSA begins in the community and brings the market for the product to the farmer.

•    As a community facilitated, direct, farm to home produce delivery system, deploying GPS guided hybrid and bio-fuel powered, electric refrigerated trucks, hybrid autos, along with human powered cargo tricycles, bicycles and trailers to transport fresh farm products to neighborhood families and individuals is innovative community leadership moving in a fresh new sustainable direction.

•    As the density of neighborhood participation increases, greater numbers of the above-indicated efficiencies could be deployed to reduce the costs of delivery.

•    Reducing the dependency on the handlers eliminates expense and improves the ability to reward farmers the highest value for their efforts.

The structure of the CSA Home Delivery system is designed to be sustainable and capable of full functionality in the most tenuous of times. It is non-dependent on foreign fuels.

What other farm fresh products are available?
More than just produce:
Eggs,
Butter
Cheese,
Baked Goods,
Meats & Poultry,   
Seeds & Seedlings,
Jams & Jellies,
Salsa & Chutney,
Other Canned Goods,
Local Cut Flowers,
Fair Trade Products*
and More……
…will also be offered by Farmers, Growers, and Producers from the Berkshires and within 100 miles radius
*Fair Trade Products like coffee are imported and purchased directly from the growers and their
cooperatives.

Who can benefit from the program?
Farm fresh products for everyone
•    Across the entire socio-economic spectrum more and more people want to eat well and add freshness to their diet.
•    Pittsfield CSA is designed to serve the vast majority of Pittsfield residents
–        Sliding cost scale based on affordability guidelines for membership
–        WIC, Senior Farmer’s Market coupons and SNAP (food stamps-electronic benefit transfer) EBT cards are a pleasure to honor and accept where applicable
•    Sponsored supported scholarship shares will increasingly become available
•    Charitable contributions to food kitchens and pantries are factored into the program

Where do you go from here?
If the Pittsfield CSA Home Delivery of farm fresh products is of interest to you and your family, then act now and take NO COST action steps. The opportunity is limited

What are the next steps?
•    SIGN UP TODAY - FREE REGISTRATION - for a placeholder’s position in the line with those exploring membership. 

Most CSA’s in the Northeast have sold-out the past couple years.

This past summer’s Pittsfield CSA Home Delivery pilot program filled out swiftly suggesting the importance of acting now.

When the program is formally announced and becomes available (no financial commitment for holding a place in line until then) we will contact registered placeholders by geographic neighborhood location and in order of registration.

Membership development focus is guided by the density of neighborhood participation to achieve the greatest efficiencies of operations and sustainability. Membership is open to any resident of Pittsfield to apply, but limited in number by the volume of produce the network of participating farmers and growers can comfortably support.

Talk with family, friends, and neighbors; discuss the program, gauge interest, encourage others to participate. Assist others to learn more and guide them to the Berkshire Harmony Blog ( http://www.berkshireharmony.com/index.php/site/blog/ ).  Thanks in advance for your effort.

Your suggestions, comments and questions are always welcome.

Every member in the CSA Community is empowered with a vioce that is heard in guiding the program along its way. We all share a commitment to sustain the process and we all share a system for bringing the highest quaility, fresh, nutrition rich, locally grown produce into our lives throughout the year. This is the favored way to ensure we receive the best product we can obtain with our available resources.

We have heard already word is going around about the CSA from folks who shop with us at the Pittsfield Harvest Farmer’s Market (Downtown Thursday Evenings 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm and others who stop by specifically to join our mailing list and to enter a drawing for a Free Pittsfield CSA Home Delivery membership share for Summer 2009.

Community participation enables the program to reflect our wants, needs and desires.

Please post  ideas to the Berkshire Harmony Blog or email us

The program’s formal announcement and early commitments begin in November/December 2008

•    Learn more…read on for more details about the  CSA’s and the Home Delivery program.

Member: Berkshire Grown .... NOFA (Northeast Organic Farmers Association+MA)… Pittsfield Harvest Farmer’s Market

E.F. Schumaker Society...Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture

© 2008 Berkshire Harmony