From CSA to Community Collective

Giant Journey Farm started feeding our community in 2017. We began our CSA in 2021. Now, we are recommitting boldly to our values and vision and we’re transitioning to a community collective.

why the switch?

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.

The concept of CSA came to life in Japan in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, farmers and consumers in several European countries, concerned about the industrialization of their food system, created the CSA model that we know today... sort of.

The first CSA in the U.S. was created in Massachusetts in 1984. Today there are over 2,500 CSAs in the U.S. and more are created every year as interest from both consumers and farmers grows, but the ways consumers interact with these CSAs has changed drastically since their inception in the 60s and 70s.

The modern American CSA is a subscription service: consumers pay upfront for fresh food which they receive throughout the season. In addition to produce being local, often organic, and marked by intense variety, many CSAs also offer other perks to their shareholders, like recipe suggestions or make-and-take gatherings. More recently CSAs have been moving to a free-choice model where consumers prepay to shop freely at a farmstand or farmers market.

While this model helps balance the books and reduce some risk for farmers, it does little else.

the vision

It takes a lot to

what does our community collective look like?

We are comprised of several nested networks:

  • Rick and Seren- your friendly neighborhood farmers

  • our collective members- a small, high commitment group of folks who build community, help make decisions, and follow through with the regular tide of tasks that make this place what it is

  • our support brigade- a broad, lower commitment group of folks who show up and show out at critical points to help us see big moments over the finish line

our expectations

our commitment to you

  • We will provide healthy, ethical food with the planet’s health at the heart of how we produce that food.

  • We will communicate promptly and transparently about crop failure or livestock loss as it occurs and make every effort to meet our community’s needs.

  • We will continue to build this place as a safe and welcoming space and commit to providing opportunities for folks to connect with their food ways and community.

  • We will build our capacity to fight for social justice and reduce the ways our internalized oppressive culture blocks our collective progress.