UConn Extension (Jiff Martin, Jude Boucher, Joe Bonelli and Mary Concklin), the USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) and CT NOFA sponsored a CSA School on November 28th, at the Middlesex County Extension Office. A total of 81 people attended the event and 49 (60%) filled out an evaluation form. Eighty percent of the participants grew vegetable crops and many also grew flowers, small fruit and had greenhouses. Eight growers, two Extension Educators and one “Typical Customer” made presentations about their CSAs’ at the workshop, while four more farmers led discussion groups on how to get started, get better and deal with regulations. Presentations included a ‘Typical CSA Vegetable Share’, ‘Multi-farmer CSA’, ‘Multi-season CSA’, ‘Partnering with Chefs’, ‘a Meat CSA’, ‘Tips & Tools for CSA Business Management’, ‘Insuring a CSA’, and a farmer panel of first-year CSA growers who shared what to do and not to do when getting started.
Seventy-nine percent of the folks who answered the evaluation rated the program as “excellent” while the rest rated it as “good”. Participants all received a CSA school booklet and all rated it either “Excellent” or “Good”. The full booklet has been posted on the UConn RMA web site at www.ctfarmrisk.uconn.edu/. Of the respondents, 86% said they learned something to change their marketing practices, while 80% said the program will improve their farm profitability. Almost everyone raved about the locally-grown lunch from River Tavern and some said it was worth the price of admission all by itself. Four respondents said they would start a CSA next summer while 10 claimed they would add a farm credit-style CSA option to their operation. Others said they would start an entertaining CSA newsletter, begin office or church deliveries, increase their crop diversity, partner with restaurants, add items to shares, write up shareholder agreements, plan production to meet share requirements, start a swap box, change the amount in each share, and have more personal contact with shareholders.