By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Starting a CSA (community supported agriculture) means running one’s own operation, answering to no boss and providing fresh, healthy food for neighbors – but it’s also a business like any other, and comes with business problems.
For instance, Anna Barnes said when the Prairieland CSA of Watseka, Ill., began, there were various missteps that ended up closing it down for an entire season shortly thereafter. It offered too many share sizes and pickup points, and management had no control over the volunteer-produced newsletters, so they weren’t always helpful for using seasonal produce.

Another problem was the better farmer dropped out after that first year. Barnes explained after its year off, Prairieland reduced the number of growers involved, pickup points and length of the pickup season.

It also started its sales sooner and tied payment due dates to coincide with local major payroll schedules. Barnes, who manages the CSA’s website, said Prairieland began offering shares on Sept. 1 of the year before, then opened the rest to the general public Oct. 1.

Payment reminders were sent out regularly and instead of extending indefinite credit, the CSA began reselling unpaid shares to other people – this was effective in getting more people to pay on time, as was marketing the CSA on the diners’ relationship with the farmers.

“These are the people who get the money, and ultimately, that’s what the CSA supports,” she told a group of organic producers at the Midwest Organic Production & Marketing Conference & Trade Show in Indianapolis Jan. 21. “When we stopped selling our people short, that’s when they really started to fly.”

It also began using its website to collect signups and payments via PayPal (which she said more than one-quarter of shareholders use), as well as to publish the weekly newsletter. Barnes said the site is simple and image-light, making it easy for dial-up Web surfers.

New members are charged $16 extra for a cookbook with recipes for using unfamiliar produce.

Most advertising is done through word-of-mouth and through the website www.localharvest.org which she said gets 14,000 hits daily and sends a great deal of Prairieland’s new shareholders their way.
The Cooley Family Farm in Lafayette, Ind., consists of six acres and a few more rented acres. Co-owner Kevin Cooley uses high tunnels to grow 75 kinds of vegetables and fruits year-round, and sells $20 share baskets 48 out of 52 weeks.

Its first year, he cut off shares at 16, afraid he wouldn’t be able to grow enough to meet his obligations and sell produce at the local farmers’ market. Each year since the share numbers have grown, though not always with the same customers.

“Do not get disappointed if everybody you sell to the first year doesn’t come back,” Cooley told the conference. “(It’s) not going to happen.”

He packs the share baskets himself from the produce he takes to the market, and those baskets get priority of specialty or scarce items – he uses this to market to casual shoppers, explaining if they join they too can get the unusual items when they come up (such as raspberries).

“Our goal is to try to convert most of the farm market business into the CSA business,” he explained. (Barnes later commented this doesn’t always work, since a big draw of the market is customer choice, whereas a CSA share is farmer-controlled.)

Cooley keeps records of what he packs each week so he can offer different items the next week to that shareholder, if possible. “I’m not worried about each basket being the same,” he said. “I’m worried about people getting their value each week.”

He too uses PayPal to collect payments. This year because of the economy, he allowed shareholders to delay paying their second half until the end of February. Aaron Zeis of Nature’s Harvest Organics in Atlanta, Ind., said his CSA is doing the same thing.

Zeis, who manages Nature’s Harvest for owner Cissy Bowman, said last year was spent transitioning to Atlanta from an hour away and running two farms.

This year, he’s just in Atlanta growing organic on four acres while bringing another 15 from corn and soybeans into hay, with the help of a federal conservation grant. He buys produce from another local farm to offer some variety to shareholders each week, and said it’s also handy backup if Bowman’s farm has had a slow week.

Last year, Zeis said the CSA had 250 members; membership has grown exponentially since 2004, when it only had 30 members.
They work on a 21-week season; he said they tried 25, but ended up having to refund two weeks’ money because there wasn’t enough produce.

In 2008, the CSA had 16 pickup sites around Indianapolis.
This year it will have only 10, but is adding a home delivery service for an extra fee, focusing on the Carmel and Broad Ripple areas.
Zeis said the CSA uses some day laborers and offers internships with a curriculum designed around organic production – too, it is partnering with a farm in St. Croix to offer a week paid there as a sort of “reward” to the intern this year, which will consist of work and leisure time.

The internship lasts three months and is three days a week with a modest stipend.

Finding the day labor isn’t easy. Zeis said many are immigrant workers who come to the CSA on days off from their primary jobs, for supplemental income.

He has used high school kids, but said they’re more “iffy” with respect to dependability. Cooley agreed, adding when he does this, he chooses teenagers just under driving age.

“(Otherwise) they tell Dad they’re down at your place pulling weeds, but they’re not,” he said to a wave of laughter.

Zeis said his marketing is done primarily by going to any event – such as this conference – that will allow the CSA to set up a display, and surveying shareholders at the end of each season for honest feedback to improve the cooperative. (One suggestion he offered: Add more fruit in shares when possible.)