Kentucky Farm Share Coalition: Expanding Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Markets for Organic Farmers

Grants and Contracts Details

Description

The Kentucky Farm Share Coalition: Expanding Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Markets for Organic Farmers builds upon previous successes and takes a multi-tiered approach to strengthening CSA markets in Kentucky. The project’s goals are to provide community outreach, training, and technical assistance to promote and deliver innovative Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) models in order to expand direct producer-to-consumer marketing opportunities across Kentucky. CSA models link locally grown food directly with consumers often via a weekly vegetable share using a central distribution point. CSA models have been proven to help farmers overcome major logistic, distribution, and cash flow issues that make it difficult to maintain quality, scale, and/or be profitable. The purpose of this project is to 1) increase organic farmers’ direct-to-consumer sales of CSA shares through workplace CSA programs; 2) promote the CSA model through a public education campaign; and 3) provide training and technical assistance to improve farmer CSA production capacity, product quality, organic practices and marketing. The Organic Association of Kentucky and partners are committed to working together to make this project successful. Partners include: Bluegrass Farm to Table, Barr Farms, Elmwood Stock Farm, Lazy Eight Stock Farm, Rootbound Farm, Sustainable Harvest Farm, UKCSA, University of Kentucky, Kentucky Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, University of Kentucky Health & Wellness, The Food Connection, and Kentucky Department of Agriculture. The project’s expected outcomes include increased farm revenue from CSA sales; increased CSA public knowledge and participation; expanded CSA farm production capacity; and, improved CSA farmers’ abilities to market their products.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date10/1/209/29/23

Funding

  • Organic Association of Kentucky: $24,000.00

Fingerprint

Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.