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New York Times Discovers CSA?

by Leah Koenig · July 14th, 2008
Community Agri., Farming, NYTimes, Rant!

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Last Thursday, The New York Times published a front-page article about Community-Supported Agriculture. Not an article about CSAs filling up too fast this year, about chefs who will cook your CSA vegetables for you, or some other new angle - just an introductory, 101, “welcome to CSA” article.

On the one hand, a certain part of me feels cynical - Hazon and other organizations (like the amazing Just Food, which got a nod in the article), have been working to educate people about Community-Supported Agriculture for what feels like eons. And, the best part is, we’ve been successful! When I first started working at Hazon four years ago, I had to explain the CSA concept to just about everyone - and trust me it got old. But that is no longer the case. I just can’t help but wonder if this topic isn’t a little bit “past ripe” for the Times breaking news-focused front page? (Admittedly, I might just be jealous of the author and/or irked at myself for not realizing that CSA was still front page news at the Times!)

That said, I’m still thrilled to see CSA continuing to get so much media attention. And, after reading that some CSA members can’t even describe what Community-Supported Agriculture means, perhaps we really still do have a ways to go.

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7 Responses to “New York Times Discovers CSA?”

  1. Debs Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 1:27 am

    You know, I kind of had the same reaction when I saw that. CSAs aren’t really brand new anymore. “Past ripe” is a good way to phrase it, especially given the topic at hand.

    Debs
    Food Is Love

  2. Rabbi Shmuel Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    I thought that too at first but remember - we take a lot of things for granted. I come into contact with many, many people who simply have never heard of CSA’s - strange but true so the milk is still good even though its a bit past the expiration date:)

  3. Melinda Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

    I’m not sure that’s 100% fair. The NY Times’ audience is the “urban elite,” for lack of a better term. CSAs have been around forever but it’s pretty recently that awareness of them has gone mainstream.

  4. Leah Koenig Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

    Yes, I agree with you both Rabbi Shmuel and Melinda - it isn’t entirely fair of me to be cynical, and a lot of people do not yet know what CSA is.

    The article just stunned me a bit. This certainly isn’t the first time the NY Times has written about CSA. Here’s a nearly identical article written in 1998 for a different section:

    http://tiny.cc/DnTZb

    I guess I just figured that for the front page, they could have gone with some interesting new angle about CSA, which then also explained what CSA was, to people who didn’t know.

  5. Debra Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 7:44 pm

    Did anybody else think it was weird that the NY Times described CSA’s as “hiring a personal farmer”? It seemed to me like an odd way to describe the service, as if I were hiring someone to work in the fields and send me pictures of him doing it, rather than arranging to buy a box of organic produce.

  6. Debs Says:
    July 16th, 2008 at 9:16 pm

    Debra, I also thought that was weird. It seemed kind of disempowering to the farmer who, after all, knows vastly more about farming than the average NYT reader.

    Debs

    Food Is Love

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