Resources

Essential reading from the Soil Association to support the development of CSA projects:

• A Share in the Harvest - CSA action manual [PDF, 1.5MB]
• A Share in the Harvest appendices [PDF, 985KB]
   
• Cultivating Co-operatives toolkit - organisational structures for local food enterprises [PDF, 5.3 MB]
   
• Pig ignorant? A Soil Association guide to small scale pig keeping, 2^nd edition, by Jim Pettipher
   
• CSA and organic buying groups leaflet & poster Copies are available to promote your CSA or organic buying group. Please email: adaniel@soilassociation.org
   
• Seting up an organic buying group A short guide on how to set up a buying group for your office, neighbours, friends etc [PDF, 205 KB]
   
• Horticultural Cropping Tool  The Soil Association has developed a basic vegetable planner using Excel to help you with initial planning for crop and business planning. For more information about the cropping tool, please contact: Ben Raskin T: 0117 314 5185
  E: braskin@soilassociation.org
   
• Cultivating Communities - features 11 case studies [PDF,1.5 MB] 

• CSA Feasibility study 2001.  This study explores the potential of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) for farm diversification and community development.  [PDF, 656KB]
   
• Food Co-ops Toolkit Sustain, our partner in the Making Local Food Work programme, has published a toolkit to help more communities set up their own food co-ops and buying groups.
   
• Marketing for CSAs. Rob Greenland from Social Business Consulting ran 2 excellent workshops on marketing for CSAs in Sheffield and Devon. For those that missed it, this link is to his presentation.
   
• Capital costs for setting up a vegetable CSA to help guide you when buying rabbit fencing, polytunnels, a rotavator, fruit trees etc.

Books

• Sharing the Harvest - an inspirational and extremely comprehensive book on CSA - known as the CSA bible. A must read!
• Farms of Tomorrow Revisited - This inspirational blueprint for CSA is set to guide this rapidly growing movement to the next stage in its development. Filled with practical examples and information for growers and shareholders alike.
• The Boxing Clever Cookbook - This cookbook is different. The first of its kind in the UK, it is more than a recipe book, it is a manual for the cook of the house. It is written for subscribers of vegetable box schemes, those who love or grow their own vegetables, have an allotment, or subscribe to a CSA scheme.

Useful guides

For community groups

• Programme for a public meeting [PDF, 40 KB]
• What next after the public meeting [PDF, 171 KB]
• Looking for land - contact your local farmers, parish council, local council or look on the Landshare website

For farmers

• Defining your proposal [PDF, 146 KB]

Further Reading

• CSA in the USA - Getting Started with Community Supported Agriculture By John Athayde, March 29, 2010
• A Global Meeting on Local Food Systems - A report of the Urgenci 2010  conference by Elizabeth Henderson
• The world of community supported agriculture - Elizabeth Henderson's keynote address, Community Supported Foods and Farming, Urgenci, Kobe, 22 February 2010