Community-supported Agriculture is raising amid pandemic. People are more concerned about the food and health in this pandemic time. The fear of suffering from the Covid-19 has made everyone make changes in the way they look at their lifestyle including food.

People are realizing that it is important to focus on healthy food intake to boost immune system and to prevent disease rather than depending on medicines and hospitals. Because we all are watching how our medical systems are overburdened and struggling to keep up with the growing number of pandemic cases. Everyone wants to return to pre-pandemic normal life sooner.

This pandemic has taught us a lot of unforgettable life lessons. For years and decades farmers and health specialists are telling people to look at food as medicine. Pandemic has been able to teach us within few months what it means. People are choosing healthy foods to keep away from doctors and hospitals.

Generally, the food and produces that reach stores travel hundreds of kilometers. In this pandemic time, we don’t know how safe our food is delivered. For this reason, community-supported agriculture is one of the best solutions and for this reason alone CSA is in raise. People are pledging to support farm operations in their local community. When the growers and consumers provide mutual support and sharing the benefits (and risk) of food production, everyone may end up in good health physically and mentally.

The benefits of being part of CSA are:

• Food tastes better as it is fresh
• More nutrition from freshly picked produce
• Organic foods without harmful chemicals
• Improving diet for better health
• Saves money on organic food and saves time. There will be great deals for bulk produce.
• Seasonal foods available fresh
• You will know where the food comes from.
• You will get to meet and connect to the community
• You can discuss and give suggestions to farmers and get to know about food from farmers
• Get an invitation to pick your fruits and produce
• You will enjoy home-cooked food!

If you are not a part of CSA or your area does not have CSA, then try to be part of CSA. Discuss with your friends and families to start CSA with community and farmers’ support and help.

• A traditional community-supported agriculture model is where:
• Members share the benefits and risk of food production with the local farmer
• Community members buy a share of the farm’s production in the growing season
• Farmers will regularly distribute the production
• The farmer will gain financial security, receives advance working capital, better crop price.

This arrangement helps farmers to buy the seeds and grow foods that the community needs. Fresh food will be available locally all year along. Sooner or later Covid-19 will be a memory. But we must keep focusing to protect our health. CSA is one of the best programs to get involved for the benefit of our health.

For more on CSA please visit:

• https://extension.psu.edu/community-supported-agriculture-csa
• https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/to-recover-from-covid-19-we-must-change-our-food-system/
• https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/community-supported-agriculture#intro
• Image credit: Image by Hans Linde from Pixabay  (Free for commercial use)
• https://in.pinterest.com/pin/400046379405597767/