12 Reasons To Join Our CSA

The Community Supported Garden at Genesis Farm, one of the first CSAs in the country, is now in its 31st year of growing and providing some of the best and healthiest plant-based food grown on our planet.

Why should you join our CSA? Our food is unique and powerful in the following ways:

1. We’ve got experience. We’ve been growing vegetables and fruits for the past 30 years using the best of the organic and biodynamic processes. Our three full-time growers have a combined experience of more than 75 years of growing food on our farm. Our farmers have made it their careers to grow our food. Each of our farmers has made personal sacrifices so that we can benefit from having some of the best food grown on the planet.
2. We are local. All of the food we grow and distribute is grown at our farm in Frelinghuysen Township, Warren County, New Jersey. We are not providing food that has been grown hundreds or thousands of miles away.
3. Our food is grown on property preserved in perpetuity as New Jersey farmland. Our CSA owns approximately 60 acres of farmland that has been preserved by the taxpayers of New Jersey by way of the New Jersey Farmland Preservation Fund. We lease about 46 adjoining acres from the Sisters of St. Dominic, whose property was also preserved through the NJ Farmland Preservation Fund. In my opinion, growing healthy plant-based food is the highest and best use of preserved farmland.
4. Our food is “clean.” We’ve never used herbicides, pesticides, GMO seeds or other agricultural practices that value quantity over quality. We know that our members know that there is truth in the observation, “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.”
5. We are using food to promote environmental awareness and action. We believe that as consumers of food that the choices we make in terms of what we “allow in our mouths” have far-ranging impacts on the health of our planet and our own health. If we refuse to buy industrial food, it ultimately won’t be grown. We recognize that the act of putting food in our mouths and bodies is an environmental action.
6. We are uniquely collaborating with the Sisters of St. Dominic to utilize some of their Farmland preserved property to grow our food. This is a unique and successful collaboration between a religious organization and a secular organization to find and utilize “common ground” that promotes a “win/win” for both entities. We are being stewards of their land and utilizing it in the highest and best ways of the Farmland Preservation Program.
7. We have a unique economic model. Our members pay for a share of the harvest at the beginning of the year. Our members share in both the highs and lows, the unexpected bounties and the unexpected disappointments that are inherent to farming. The invaluable “upside” is that this model allows our farmers to concentrate on growing the healthiest food and not be “chasing the marketplace” by growing, for instance, all GMO corn or soybeans. A recent example of how this works is that, as a result of the severe winter weather we experienced, the plastic covering of one of our greenhouses was ripped off during an intense winter storm and most if not all of the greens growing inside were wind- and cold-damaged. This is nature and unavoidable. Rather than the farmers bearing the burden of nature, the loss was spread among our members. In a conventional agriculture setting, the farmer absorbs all the losses.
8. We have a committed and unique Board of Trustees. We are incorporated in New Jersey as a “NJ Not For Profit Corporation.” Our Board of Trustees consists of approximately 10 people. Several of our Board members have served on our Board for over 30 years! We all bring different perspectives to our Board. We share a common goal of uniting to insure that the food we grow is among the best grown on the planet. We all serve without any financial renumeration.
9. We have an apprenticeship program. Not only are we growing food but we are also “growing farmers.” Every year, we train 3 to 6 committed people who are exploring a career in “healthy agriculture.” Our apprentices have gone on to “spread the seed” in starting their own farms.
10. We’ve got the best volunteers. Although there is no requirement, as a member, to volunteer, we welcome, incorporate and need volunteers to continue with our success. As with all nonprofits, volunteer efforts and hours are crucial. I’ve repeatedly heard volunteers state, “No matter how much I give, I always seem to get back more.”
11. We are sustainable. We’ve been “green” since we started 30 years ago. All of our efforts are directed to insuring that the land we farm continues to improve in quality. We use no pesticides, herbicides or GMO seeds. Compost, made on site, is our principal means of nurturing the soil. Our farmers receive sustainable compensation including health insurance, pension contributions and a fair wage.
12. We make eating vegetables fun! Forget about those canned industrial vegetables that we all “push around our plates.” We grow really tasty food! Our food wouldn’t even fit in a can.

Approximately 300 families join every year to receive a share of the harvest at the Community Supported Garden at Genesis Farm. Most come to the farm in Blairstown to pick up their shares, but there are pick-up locations throughout northern NJ.

Membership is open to all and new members are signing up now for the spring season. For additional information, email csgardeninfo@gmail.com or call 908-362-7486. Join us today!