When designing a successful community supported agriculture operation , one must think a raft : How many hebdomad should be offered ? How many share sizes ? How will the client get the product — speech , farmers market or on - farm pickup arm ? What about pricing ? Because CSA sign - up season approaches , here is a checklist you’re able to go through to design the CSA that best fits your farm and your budget for the class .
1. Budget
How much your farm call for to make in a yr — your budget — is arguably the unmarried most significant factor in design your CSA . Once you know how much it cost to run your farm — including DoL , ejaculate costs and all farm expense — you could determine how much tax revenue you want your CSA to generate . For some farms , the CSA might compensate for 100 percent of the budget , where on other farms it might cover only a modest part of the farm budget . Whatever the case , once you have that identification number , you may determine the anatomical structure of your CSA .
2. Duration
Once you have your farm budget , you could resolve for how many weeks you want your CSA to go . This should be based primarily on your growing time of year and your acquirement level . An experienced grower might palpate well-heeled provide a CSA for 25 or 30 hebdomad , or even year - orotund . A novice , on the other hired man , should probably consider fewer weeks , or a belittled numeral of shares , while he or she gains experience . you could always add a fall and/or wintertime share . This number will hep you determine the overall cost of the CSA .
3. Price & Share Sizes
Pricinga CSA is sly . Some farmers like to tender many size options , whereas some farms might offer only one or two . Honestly , I recommend offering one , and giving a discount to larger family who corrupt more than one share . This keeps it simple , and you’re able to more easy determine the amount of shares you ask to volunteer by dividing the overall cost of the plowshare into your budget . So if the operation needs to make a budget of $ 30,000 , and each 20 - week share costs $ 400 , you would need to offer 75 shares . You might have to adjust the distance of the CSA and the cost of the share until it seems sane for you .
Also , before you proceed , check that the price per week makes sense after you do this maths ( simply divide the number of week by the total terms of the share ) . If you do the math and your terms per week is $ 75 , you might want to conform some things as key below . you could also lead off with the monetary value per hebdomad , multiply it by the number of weeks and get you percentage cost . You then need to divide that into your budget to see how many shares you need to sell . Again , you may pull off as necessary .
4. Editing
Sometimes you conclude that the number of shares you need to fufill is not possible for your farm . In this case , you will want to edit out your CSA . Do you need to increase the price to decrease the number of parcel ? Do you necessitate to carry the continuance of the CSA so that a smaller identification number of ploughshare can get you close to your budget ? Here you might decide to supply some “ add - ons ” to generate more money per portion such as eggs , dairy farm or meat . Or , you might decide to decrease the amount of money the CSA needs to make and instead lean heavier on one of your other issue such as the farmers market or restaurants .
Ether way , get your budget guide on your CSA , not vice versa . This is the only way to ensure you will fetch in the money you need to make every year .
