Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a partnership acknowledging that we’re in this life together; our futures intertwined. Farmers bring seed and sweat, collaborate with soil and sun ultimately providing food to members who bring early-season monetary resources when they are most needed. Then, weekly, we share the harvest: the first and the best with our members, and together celebrate this farm’s bounty and its wonderful community.

The concept of shared risk and shared harvest is an old one that goes back before anyone remembers. When the world was simpler, communities were in the habit of looking out for each other, and the young, the elderly, the alone, and the hungry. Urban and rural neighborhoods of today provide community growing space where neighbors are invited to pitch in helping as they can and taking what they need. Looking forward, we know that growing and sharing food will help us find the nourishment we need and the common ground we must find. Food brings us together in so many ways.

Interestingly enough, we trace the term Community Supported Agriculture back to the 1900s when students of Rudolf Steiner in Germany and groups of women in Japan independently brought growers and eaters together to bring food from the ground to support all involved. Biodynamic farmers in the northeastern U.S. borrowed the term and brought the practice to their farms in the 1980s. Our growers come from this lineage tracing their roots back to Mark Trela from the White Violet Center for Eco-Justice.

Further back even, farmers in the southern U.S. began inviting their neighbors onto their farms to pick their own. Dr. Booker T. Whatley, a professor at Tuskegee University, taught regenerative agriculture principles that would bring health, vitality, diversity, and life back to the soil. Farming in his spare time, Dr. Whatley decided he would farm ‘smaller and smarter’ and would provide access for his community. He coined the term, Clientele Membership Clubs and believed that 1,000 households could be fed from 25 acres.

At Gibbs Road Farm, the partnership is year-round as we design our production plan and planting schedule in January, and select seeds and supplies; then bring on staff in February when the greenhouse begins to explode in green just as members submit their CSA share payments. CSA members are crucial in the ecosystem of a regenerative, community farm like ours. We share what we have so that all have what they need.

Our CSA is unique in that this farm is an educational farm. We work alongside people of all ages, ancestries, and abilities to grow food and to support folx learning how to grow food. Our adult crew are aspiring farmers. We employ high school students as apprentices. We engage with youth as young as 4 years old in growing food. We know that even the littlest ones among us can experience success when they are supported, when appropriate tools are provided, and when the work is scaled for their abilities.

The beauty and the challenge of what we do here is one. We engage many holding space for exploration and we hold space for many engaging in exploration. We are serious about growing food and doing it in a way that keeps the grower safe, the food safe, and the consumer safe. We share the joy and the hardships of food production with the growers and with our consumers. We welcome you to our CSA program and we welcome you onto the farm to see how we grow and to get to know the growers and the land that our food grows from.

Choose the All Seasons Share which is our thirty-week membership, or select only the seasons that work for you. Our members receive the best of our regeneratively-grown veggies, farm-tested recipes, fresh-from-the-field reflections, and an occasional goodie from the other local trusted farmers. We’ve also got add-on options of locally-produced dairy, bread, eggs, meat, and more.

Distribution is on Wednesday afternoons with a Saturday morning option at the KCK Farmers Market.
Delivery is available for locations within the 435 loop.

We’d love to feed you and welcome you into the community.
The farm is a great place to get involved, get dirty, relax, or to host a birthday party.
Our farm is your farm. Truly. We are in this together. Gratefully.

Got questions? Ask Alicia- she’s back in the field and growing food in 2024!

join our CSA today, or purchase one for a friend.