Strattons Farm CSA initiative 2012

Strattons Farm is an ecologically sound small farm, based in the rolling hills of Stirling-Rawdon, in Hastings County. We provide "nutritionally dense food" to our customers throughout the season from our fields. Whether it be heirloom vegetables, heritage Berkshire pork, fresh farm gate eggs, honey from our bees to pasture raised poultry.

The farm was created out of a love of good food and a need to know where our food was coming from. After watching such movies as Food Inc, Fresh, The World According to Monsanto, and reading The Raw Milk Revolution, Omnivores Dilemma and Food Inc we decided to take our passion for food and sustainable living and share it with our local community.

Our vegetable boxes are sold via the CSA initiative.

What is a CSA?

The CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm on an annual basis where the grower and shareholders share the risk and benefits of food production. This then connects the shareholder to fresh, local, sustainably grown, herbicide and pesticide free food in their area.

Why join a CSA?

Keeps food local rather than it being picked unripe, then being gassed in a storage container to ripen while it travels thousands of kilometres to get to your table.

Stopping the large corporations taking over the food system.

Learning to explore the delights of eating seasonally.

Supporting a local farm helps to stimulate the local economy.

Giving you the security of knowing where your food has been grown and that it has been grown in an environmentally sustainable way using as little fossil fuels as possible.

Having a relationship with the farmer that grows your food. Rather than heading into a food store, picking up food that has been handled by many hands, wrapped in plastic, that has already been cleaned and prepared for you and may have already spent several weeks sitting on a shelf.

New at our farm for 2012: This year we will have an exchange basket if there is a vegetable that you don't particularly enjoy or you need some extra garlic you will be able to exchange one of your weekly items out with something else in the basket. For example: For the kale lovers you could have more kale and for the kale loathers you could exchange it for extra carrots or cabbage.

If you are interested in joining our garden, then please see the following link to read more about the programme and some of the feedback we have received from our members.

http://strattonsfarm.blogspot.com/p/csa-veggie-baskets.html

Boxes are limited as our aim is to be able to manage everything here at the farm between Michael and I (with a lot of help from our Suffolk Punch Draft horses May & Lily) and also to produce high quality naturally grown vegetables for you all.

If you would like more information or are interested in joining this years CSA then please contact us at the farm and we can e-mail or post your brochure and application form to you.

For those who are not close to our farm and would like to support a local farmer this season and receive seasonal fresh food then search through CSA Ontario's database to find your local CSA. On http://csafarms.ca/index.html

"Look to the past for a greener future"

Sally & Michael