Stroud-CSA

Following is a HTML version of a presentation given to a Transition Meersbrook / Heeley public meeting held on 23rd April 2009, much of the following text has been taken from a PDF of the history of Stroud Community Agriculture,, for more information see the Stroud Community Agriculture website and for more general CSA information  the the Soil Association website.

PDF Version: | OpenOffice Version:  

Audio of the meeting has been posted to Indymedia:


 * Chris on Stroud Community Agriculture - mp3 4.3M
 * Kirstin Glendinning from the Soil Association - mp3 19M

=Stroud Community Agriculture=



Stroud Community Agriculture was established in 2001 "following a public meeting in Stroud attended by some 80 people".



Stroud Community Agriculture is a "well established CSA with nearly 200 members which supplies a weekly vegetable box to its members and also keeps pigs, sheep and beef in order to supply meat to members that want to buy it. They rent 50 acres on 2 separate sites and employ 2 full time growers/farmers."



"Most SCA members go to one of either of the farms to collect their veg shares."



"The week’s harvest and bought-in produce is set out in boxes in the packing sheds."



"there is a whiteboard in the packing shed, which the growers use to describe the weekly veg share... The whiteboard also includes notes about where the veg has come from (if it has not been grown on our farm) and any notes about events that are coming up."



"Vegetables: Whatever is in season topped up by bought in veg from local suppliers. £33 for the first share (most members find that this is enough for 2 adults) £22 for additional shares per month."



"SCA decided to charge £2 per month for membership. This pays for the administrative costs of running the co-operative. Members can then choose to buy a veg share. The first £10 of a member’s first veg share goes to support the farm as a whole. The remaining £23 goes towards the cost of producing the veg. If a member wants more than one veg share, subsequent shares cost £22 each. This means that a household taking one veg share will pay a standing order of £35 per month. Two share costs £48 per month."



"An early SCA public meeting discussed the pros and cons of buying in veg when we could not grow enough of our own to make up a decent veg box – especially during the hungry gap (between the end of the winter veg in April and the beginning of the next season’s veg in June). We decided that until we were able to grow enough veg to feed all our members, we would buy in veg and aim to provide a balanced veg share every week throughout the year."



"A list of the weeks veg share is written up on a whiteboard and the members weigh out their own share. If there is anything that they don’t want to take home, they put it in the gift box. The gift box is also used for any other produce that members want to offer from their own gardens and allotments (it gets a lot of garden fruit in the autumn). Members can also take anything that is offered in the gift box."



"For the first couple of years, SCA only produced vegetables. When we decided to start keeping animals for meat we lost a few members who objected to the idea of killing animals."



"There are still some members who are interested in setting up a veg-only CSA using permaculture principles to maintain fertility rather than animal manure."



"SCA now produces beef and lamb as well as pork for its members. All the meat production runs at a financial loss, which is covered by the surplus we make on the vegetables"



"SCA offers all its members access to the packing shed where they can buy cuts of meat, sausages, bacon, etc. This produce is sold on a trust basis. Members help themselves from a freezer, record the cost of what they have taken in a book, and leave a cheque in payment."



Brookthorpe 1 acre Victorian walled garden, where the CSA started.















24 acres of farm land at Brookthorpe.









Bees.



Horses.



"Although we have some of our own veg in the veg share for every week of the year, in reality there are still only a few weeks in the year when the share includes 100% of our own veg. Until recently we haven’t had enough land to grow sufficient quantity of the staples such as potatoes, onions and carrots, so most of these are bought in. Over the year as a whole we produce about 60% of the veg that goes out to members. In the long term as we get the new land into full production, we hope to grow a greater proportion of our veg. And start to meet more of our members’ other needs such as woodfuel, grain, eggs, fruit, etc."