Celebrate CSAs with us!

CSA share at Full Well Farm, Adams, MA

What is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)?

CSA is a subscription to the freshest, most flavorful food your local farm has to offer! CSA members invest in the farm at the beginning of the season. When you buy CSA shares, you help farmers cover the costs of seeds, equipment and labor before the growing season begins. In return, you'll receive a share of the harvest throughout the growing season.

Investing in Local Food

CSA keeps farms thriving. Farming is a challenging and risky endeavor, and your upfront investment helps farmers purchase early-season supplies, pay their farm teams a fair wage and farm with the knowledge and pride that the food they produce is nourishing their neighbors. You know exactly where your food comes from, and you know that you’re directly supporting the farm.

By joining a CSA, you’ll get to know your farmers and you'll find kindred spirits in your fellow CSA members. Many farms provide newsletters and recipes, volunteer opportunities, or other on-farm events as additional ways of deepening camaraderie amongst their CSA members. Whether you pick up your share in a library parking lot or at the edge of the CSA field, you’ll be in community with others who value good food from well-tended land.

Environmental Impact

Not only do CSAs make sense for farmers, but CSAs makes sense for the environment, too. When you pick up your share, you’re getting little waste or packaging, low food mileage and beneficial agricultural practices. CSA member Alivia W. said of joining Red Shirt Farm in Lanesborough, MA, “One of our best purchases was joining Red Shirt Farm CSA. The vegetables are fresh and beautiful! We always look forward to our pickup day, when we can also browse through the pick-your-own herbs and flowers.”

Healthy Eats

When you join a CSA, you’re going to get cooking! Creating menus that incorporate all your CSA ingredients is a fun and delicious challenge, and your farmers and fellow members will be happy to share their favorite recipes and tips.

Most CSA shares run through the summer months, when harvest is at its peak. You may also find winter shares, where late-planted hardy crops like hard squash and hardy greens are favored. Spring shares will contain some storage veggies, some that are over-wintered in the ground and a selection of cool-weather, early-year greens such as peas or baby kale.

Your Food Dollars Count for More

CSAs offer their members a great value. The cost of a CSA is cheaper than the equivalent products at farmers markets and is often competitive with grocery store prices. Additionally, lots of farms offer sliding scale prices, payment plans, subsidies or working shares to make their CSAs as economically accessible as possible. Many CSA farms take SNAP, and in Massachusetts, some can apply HIP funding toward a CSA purchase.

Berkshire Roots

CSA’s have deep roots in the Berkshires. Robyn Van En farmed at Indian Line Farm from 1983 until her untimely death in 1997. “Community Supported Agriculture is a term coined in my dining room in 1986,” says its current owner, Elizabeth Keen.

Keen explains, “Community Supported Agriculture is a relationship between farmers and consumers. It is sharing the risk and sharing the bounty that can exist on a farm.” This relationship is cemented by a commitment: consumers become members by pre-purchasing a share of the farm’s produce. Farmers, in return, commit to growing food for that season “to the absolute best of their ability.”

Massachusetts Department of Agriculture celebrates the eastern part of the state's contribution to the CSA model as well. Rick LeBlanc states, "Massachusetts’ CSA story also includes Tony Andrews Farm, established in 1935 in Falmouth. After facing racial discrimination and labor barriers, Tony Andrews transitioned to a successful pick-your-own model that strengthened direct-to-consumer relationships and community food access. This approach reflects longstanding traditions of mutual aid and cooperative resilience within Black farming communities. Tony Andrews Farm remains a cornerstone of community food access today."

Learn about this history of CSA as a sustainable model for farmers here.

Find Your CSA

Did you know that Berkshire Grown has a searchable map of regional Foods and Farms on our website? You can access the map here. Select the box “CSA” from the menu to show all the local farms offering shares to their members.

CSAs offer more than vegetables! Some livestock and dairy farmers also offer their products through CSA or flexible choice ordering. Flower farmers also offer CSA's. Every CSA is unique - check with your farmer to find the best fit.

Advancing Our Work: from the Executive Director's Desk

Advocating for state policies and funding that support farmers and expand food access has become a growing part of my role as Executive Director of Berkshire Grown. My work has always involved connecting with our local government delegation and collaborating with organizations across the Berkshires and Massachusetts. In March 2025, the federal government unexpectedly cancelled the state-managed, USDA-funded Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA), which had provided millions of dollars to Massachusetts farms and families facing food insecurity. In response, I joined an LFPA Working Group to highlight the program's profound, wide-ranging impact and brainstorm creative strategies to replace those funds. Together, we are urging legislators and the Governor to recognize this moment as a clear opportunity for the Commonwealth to transform what began as a temporary federal response into a lasting commitment to build an equitable local food system in Massachusetts.

LFPA expanded economic opportunities for local and socially disadvantaged food producers while getting fresh food to people experiencing food insecurity. From late 2022 through May 2025, $11.3 million in LFPA funds were spent on food purchased from nearly 500 Massachusetts farmers and fishermen, 40% of which are considered underserved. More than 700 community sites, including pantries, senior centers, schools, health programs and mutual aid efforts received this locally grown food at no cost.

For Berkshire Grown, LFPA supported $740,000 in purchases from 38 regional farms for our Farm to Food Access program. This fresh, nutritious food was distributed to food access sites across Berkshire County by our partner, Berkshire Bounty. The program created reliable markets for local farmers and consistent access to fresh, local food for families.

In March 2025, Massachusetts was awarded an additional $6.4 million for a third round of LFPA funding. Farms and organizations planned their seasons, staffing and distributions around these funds. Crop plans were set. Food storage and transportation capacity was expanded. Partnerships rooted in trust and shared purpose were solidified. Weeks later, the federal government canceled the program without warning or explanation. Communities that had finally begun to experience stability felt it ripped away.

Our LFPA Working Group has gathered support from more than eighty partners across the state and sent a joint letter to Governor Maura Healey and her Anti-Hunger Task Force. That letter emphasized a shared belief: communities are strongest when everyone has access to nourishing food, and when the people who grow and distribute that food can count on stable, dignified work. LFPA funding embodied values that extend far beyond agriculture. They reflect a belief in fairness, in shared responsibility and in the power of local relationships to meet local needs.

The Working Group hopes to secure a combination of state and private funding that will build an LFPA-type program. Such a program would:

Rebuild reliable and profitable market channels for local farmers;
Strengthen the local food supply chain infrastructure;
Restore consistent access to a significant volume of fresh, locally grown food for people most affected by food insecurity.

A hidden joy in this advocacy work has been learning from and about other farm and food support organizations across MA. The level of collaboration is phenomenal - from writing our letter to the Governor to cooperatively planning a Local Food Purchasing Lobby Day at the State House on Thursday, March 5 where we will share the profound impact and incredible potential of an LFPA-style program with state legislators. It has reminded me that advocacy is all about empowerment: sharing the values we believe in and connecting with people who can turn those values into real, lasting reality.

Events

National CSA Week was Sunday, February 15 - Saturday February 21, but we're celebrating all month long. CSA farmers across our region depend on your support now for a successful season ahead. Learn more here.

Berkshire Cider Project is hosting Apres Cider pop-ups, February 21-24, March 14-17 and March 21-24 12-7pm with cider flights, High Lawn cheese and more! More info here.

The NOFA/Mass Winter Conference at UMass Amherst is Saturday, February 28 8am-5pm. This year's theme is Healthy Soils in Action. More info and register here.

Mark your calendars to join us for the Local Food Purchasing Lobby Day Thursday, March 5, 10:30 - 12:00 in Room 437 at the Boston State House.

Save the Dates for Winter Farmers Market

Mark your calendars! Berkshire Grown's 2025-2026 indoor Winter Farmers Market season is underway!

In Great Barrington, the fifth of six indoor Winter Farmers Markets will take place on Saturday, March 21st from 10am-1pm at the Housy Dome (Housatonic Community Center). The last remaining indoor market will run Saturday, April 18th. The Housy Dome is located at 1064 Main Street in Housatonic and is included on the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority BRTA route #21.

Admission is free and food access is an integral part of the markets. Shoppers using the HIP incentive reimburses shoppers who spend SNAP funds on fresh fruits and vegetables, and SNAP users will receive a match up to $30. Funding for this match program was provided by the Berkshire Agricultural Ventures Market Match Fund. Please visit the market manager’s table for more details!

What We’re Reading, Watching and Listening

Berkshire Grown's President Sarah Gardner recently wrote about winter livestock farming in our area in the Berkshire Eagle.

Black History Month in February invites us to celebrate the lasting contributions of Black Americans. Black farmers, past and present, have played a vital role in shaping our food systems and stewarding the land. We're excited to share the following resources highlighting this legacy and the people carrying it forward.

Seeds is a 2025 documentary film by Brittany Shyne examining the decline of generational black farmers and the significance of owning land. Learn more here .

The 1619 Project audio series from the New York Times produced two podcast episodes in 2020 featuring a family of sugar-cane farmers in Louisiana. In this gripping tale, the story of black land ownership in America is shown to often be one of loss and dispossession. Listen here.

Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm in nearby Petersburgh, NY, is highlighted in a 2023 film Farming While Black, a feature film about the rising generation of young black farmers. Learn more here.

In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World upends conventional wisdom by shifting attention from the crops slaves were forced to produce to the foods they planted for their own nourishment. Judith Carney's 2011 work is available here.