Local Farms Expand CSA Offerings for Easy Access to Produce, Meat, Eggs and More

Throughout the pandemic, supply-chain issues have revealed cracks in our food system — and at times resulted in emptier-than-usual shelves at the grocery store. But the Front Range is home to a number of local producers, and over the past two years, many farmers have transformed their operations in order to connect more people to the local food network — including expanding their CSA (community supported agriculture) offerings.

A CSA share is a lump sum payment made in February or March to your local farmer. In turn, the purchaser receives a box full of produce each week throughout the spring, summer and fall. The up-front cost for a CSA share can be intimidating. For example, a small farm share from Cure Organic Farm in Boulder, which feeds one to two people for twenty weeks, is $415 — but that averages out to just $20.75 per week for a substantial amount of high-quality, fresh local produce. Not only does it cut back on your grocery bill, but it's also a way to pay it forward, giving farmers who have taken the winter off the funds needed to start up the season.

An example box for May could include garlic scapes, fresh garlic, snap peas, spring salad mix, overwintered spinach, cucumbers, fresh Western Slope cherries and apricots, arugula, breakfast radishes, purple potatoes, summer squash, or whatever specialty crops your local farmer decided to plant. The benefit of this system is that the snap peas — or any produce, for that matter — in your CSA were likely picked from the plant that same morning, resulting in a far more flavorful product than produce from large grocery stores.
In the past, both Cure and Ollin Farms in Longmont focused primarily on selling fruits and vegetables at their farm stands and through their CSA programs. But over the course of the shutdowns in 2020, the two farms began partnering with local ranchers raising heritage breeds of pigs, chickens, cows and lamb; bakers crafting loaves of sourdough and whole wheat loaves; mushroom growers harvesting exotic fungi; beekeepers with local wildflower honey; and dozens of other local producers.

Because of those partnerships, Cure is now offering egg shares, meat shares, bread shares, flower shares and more. It's also selling a CSA Card in addition to its traditional CSA shares. With the CSA Card option, people pay a lump sum of $500 in the spring and get to choose which items go in their box each week.

Mark and Kena Guttridge of Ollin Farms have partnered with eight other producers for its CSA, which is available to people living in Denver through a pick-up location at Coperta (400 East 20th Avenue) on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. starting in June. There will also be pick-up locations in Boulder, Lafayette, and Niwot, as well as at the farm itself. Meat, bread, eggs, tamales, hot sauce, honey, flowers and more will be available as add-ons.

Since CSAs are engineered to get rid of the middleman, you are unlikely to find oranges, pineapples or mahi-mahi in your box; many people use CSA shares as a way to supplement grocery store trips. But participating in a CSA  helps support a resilient local food system and reduces the carbon footprint of food production.

Cure Organic Farm is located at 7416 Valmont Road in Boulder. For more information on its CSA program, visit cureorganicfarm.com/csa-program. Ollin Farms is located at 8627 North 95th Street in Longmont. To learn more about its 2022 CSA options, visit ollinfarms.com/csa.html.