JOLIET, Ill. — Band of Farmers is coming to the Greater Chicagoland neighborhood this summer … and your community could be among many on the agenda to visit.

Band of Farmers is a coalition of farms within community supported agriculture (CSA) that serves as a direct contact between the consumer and the farmer. The CSA is a group of consumer-subscribers who provide financial support to a farm in the pre-season winter months, the time when most producers pay for labor, seeds, soil nutrients, fertilizers and weed killer, but gain miniscule income from the land to support these expenses.

In return, CSA subscribers receive a share of a farm’s produce throughout the growing season. The share usually consists of a weekly or monthly distribution of vegetables, fruits or dairy products grown on a local farm and harvested close to the time of delivery.

Subscribers obtain their share directly from the farm or at sites like a church basement or a local business, or sometimes by direct delivery from the farm to the home or place of employment.

Because most CSA farms are organic or growing sustainably, their foods are more nutrient-dense than that in grocery stores, CSA spokeswoman Robin Schirmer of Joliet noted last week. To assist consumers in becoming more aware of the CSAs that serve their area, Band of Farmers will be present at a variety of community events this summer in the Chicagoland area.

“This isn’t about farmers’ markets,” Schirmer said of the upcoming visits. “This is about CSA, a different kind of direct marketing between farmers and consumers. The consumer basically supports the farms in the off-season like the present, then during the growing season, receives produce in return for whatever (the crop) is.

“Our only requirements are that Band of Farmers is serving the Chicago area, which is pretty broadly defined, plus there be some majority in what they are offering to share from their CSA plots – something they have grown or produced.”

The CSA model takes into account the concept of sharing both the risks and the rewards. A question on the application that becomes part of the farm profile asks the farmer what he or she would do in a situation in which a particular crop failed to produce. Farmers do face droughts, hail and all kinds of other pests that can be injurious to crops.

“It would be a problem if the farmer fails to uphold his end of the agreement,” Schirmer explained. “We have a bit of a mechanism for consumers to let us know if there is a problem, and we would probably try and counsel that farm as to how to deal with it. That would be a bad situation because it would reflect on CSAs and small farms generally. (Produce failure) is a pretty rare instance and is something to take on a case-by-case basis.

“A benefit of the CSA is the great variety of crops grown, from 20 to 40 to 80 different kinds and varieties within them,” she added. “So, if something doesn’t work, there’s enough other produce to tap into. Diversification is a big factor with the CSA. It’s not a corn and soybean CSA; its tomatoes and peppers and onions and potatoes – a little bit of everything.”

The first known CSA was begun in Japan and in Europe in 1986 as a diversified method of marketing. One of the real benefits of CSA farming is the income paid to the farmer by the subscriber to help meet the early spring farming expenses.

“The CSA gets that income upfront – not necessarily all of it – and then the farmer knows the number of people for whom he’s growing produce,” Schirmer said.

The Chicagoland CSA is a product of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, a nonprofit organization funded by about a dozen organizations including the federal and state departments of agriculture. Contact the Chicagoland CSA through www.bandoffarmers.org to learn more about CSAs and to find the CSA that best serves consumers’ needs.