Why CSA Market Gardening is the Way to Go

If you are new to market gardening, my recommendation is you seriously consider the CSA market gardening model. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.

In the CSA model, your customers essentially subscribe to your market garden, paying in advance for a season's worth of fresh organic produce. It's a good model for the market gardener because she has a guaranteed market for her produce. It's good for the customers because they are getting a share of fresh, locally-grown veggies from a known source. And there are very specific business advantages as well.

Advantage 1: Customers are 'locked-in'
This is a great advantage for the CSA market gardener. Once you have 'signed up' your customers, they are yours for the season! You don't have to worry about losing sales to some other grower who undercuts your prices.

Advantage 2: Early cash flow
Since you will be meeting with your prospective customers before the season starts, you can collect advance payments from them to finance your market gardening start-up. So you can actually start this business with very little money out of your pocket. The early payment from customers will pay for seed and equipment and other start-up costs.

Advantage 3: Planned production
This is probably the single most powerful advantage of the Community Supported Agriculture model market gardening model; you can actually plan in advance how much you need to grow to satisfy your market! Since you will meet all your customers well in advance of the growing season, you can find out their likes and dislikes; e.g. if nobody you meet likes eggplant, don't grow it! Since you know exactly what you will be growing, and in what quantity (based on the number of customers you have), you can plan for costs, space in your greenhouse and garden, how much labour you will need, etc. This is a very powerful advantage over the poor guy who brings his produce to the farmer's market, never knowing what will sell and what will be wasted.

Advantage 4: The opportunity to sell more
Because you have meet and talk with your market gardening customers, you can find out about other products they might be interested in. Do you (or a friend) bake delicious bread? Maybe your customers would like a loaf or two with their order (at a price, of course). How about pickles and preserves, or pies and pastries? The possibilities are limitless. We sell just about all our pastured pork and pastured poultry to our CSA customers.

There's never been a better time to start market gardening; the demand for fresh, local produce is growing every year (at least 20% annually). If you have ever thought about tapping into that demand, and making money from your garden, CSA is the way to go!

Find out more about market gardening and starting your own CSA at Start Market Gardening