The pandemic sparked renewed interest in Community Supported Agriculture for this local farm

At Winterfell Acres, located just south of Madison in Brooklyn, farmer Bethanee Wright operates a Community Supported Agriculture farm on an acre of certified organic land. Starting with 20 members in 2014, Wright now grows food for about 120 families each season.

“I find that the No. 1 reason people join my CSA farm is because they want to know the farmer who grows their food, plain and simple,” Wright says.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it a surge of interest in CSA shares. “For our farm, COVID intensified our CSA members’ desires to be part of our farm more deeply,” Wright says. “But on the most basic level, this makes sense because people want to know where their next meal is coming from, and COVID made the insecurities of our food system even more clear.”

Courtesy of Winterfell Acres

In addition to making it easier to support the local food economy, Wright says the benefits of joining a CSA include “the sweetest carrots you’ve ever tasted, buttery turnips, rainbow heirloom tomatoes … and a deeper sense of place and connection with the land that grows your food.”

While weekly boxes might feature new-to-you produce like rainbow carrots, beet greens, purple tomatoes and orange watermelons, there will also be plenty of recognizable items, but with a twist. “You will taste veggies that you have eaten all your life in a whole new way because CSA veggies grown with love by your farmer in healthy, vibrant soils and farm ecosystems taste like nothing you can buy at the regular grocery store,” Wright says.

Read more vegetable stories here.