Our farmer just eMailed out his rates for 2009 and they have not changed! Our farmer has kept his rates for his fruits and vegetables the same for the past three years!!

He said though his expenses have gone up he feels his new energy saving measures will offset the rise in his expenses. He also said he feels a loyalty to his customers and that we are all in this econonomy together.

If interested in locking in to a contract w/a fruit or vegetable farmer in your area, just search for Community Supported Agriculture or localharvest.org. The links are also mentioned in other threads in mommysavers too.

Let me assure you, he's not making millions. I think he "gets" the idea shopping locally.

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Buy local. Save the jobs in your community.

We do this with a local farm here. It is so worth the money and our farmer tries so hard as well. Like if he has basil for us he'll give us beautiful fresh tomatoes and fresh mozzarella from his farm store to make a great salad. We also get wonderful flowers and fun stuff he wants to try out selling in his store. With ours we don't have to do any work. We just go in and he has the bags all ready for us to take home with our week's share. We have so much fun guessing what we are getting that week. People always ask me if I get "weird stuff" and the only thing I have ever gotten that we didn't like is beets, but that is our family's preference. Make sure you do ask first though what types of things they plan to provide so you will be able to use it. One of my friends used a different farm and she got more Kale than she ever wanted in her whole life. This will be our third summer doing it as well. His prices did go up this year, but not by a lot and it makes me feel good to be supporting a local business.

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If you want to make God laugh tell him your plan!

Thanks for the reminder. I procastinated last year and missed getting a share with my favorite farm.

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I looked into to this last year, but they had already sold all the shares. When I checked in January, the rates had gone up significantly ($400 for a non-working half-share and $350 for a working half-share), but they have also extended the season (May-October) this year due to extra help being available. So, now I am torn. It seems like a lot of money to put down at one time but I think it might help us eat healthier. Also, DH and I work twice as much in the summer and don't have a lot of time or energy to prepare meals.
Does anyone with experience with CSA's have any thoughts? Are those prices good?