How to Set Up a CSA

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is fast becoming one of the most resilient and transparent business models for growers and small-scale farmers. This course will help you to establish if a CSA business is right for you and develop the necessary skills, knowledge and confidence to start a CSA in your community.

This two day course of inspiring talks, practical site visits, panel discussions and Q&A's will be delivered by the FarmED team and led by Emma Mills and Dan Betterton - head growers of FarmED's resident Community Supported Agriculture enterprise, the Kitchen Garden People. With their first-hand experience establishing and managing a successful CSA vegetable enterprise, this course primarily draws upon market/kitchen gardening case studies, whilst also incorporating and being highly applicable to other CSA enterprises including cut flowers, eggs, dairy, meat, honey and more.

This course is for you if…

• You're looking for your route into farming and curious about starting a CSA
• You already have land and are looking to diversify your output
• You’re searching for new ways to improve your existing business.

As well as gaining the theoretical knowledge required to run a CSA business, you will also have the opportunity to visit two CSA market gardens as part of the course programme - The Kitchen Garden People's site at FarmED and The Three Turnips at Lower Hampen Farm where Lydia Handy will led a tour of her market garden which was established two years ago off the back of FarmED market gardening course. A perfect opportunity to see what you can achieve from attending this course!

By the end of this course you will have learnt how to:

• Develop your own CSA business plan
• Prepare land for cultivation and plan a crop rotation
• Grow vegetables using agroecological techniques
• Select appropriate infrastructure, tools and machinery
• Manage weeds and pests agroecologically
• Effectively market produce and the CSA business model to build a customer base
• Harvest and process produce for distribution to customers
• Attract and manage volunteers, building a community around your CSA business.

This course is open to anyone with an interest in farming that nourishes community and the planet. You may be a horticultural grower, new entrant, community project coordinator, farmer, trainee, land-owner or someone looking for a career change!

Ticket price includes a light seasonal lunch and refreshments from the FarmED cafe.

Tiered Pricing

Delivery of our mission is a collective effort and our values embrace inclusivity and diversity. We don’t want price to be a barrier to anyone visiting FarmED or attending our events. Read more about our tiered pricing policy here.

If cost is a barrier to you attending, then please do ask us for financial support. The FarmED Bursary offers free or subsidised places to those that will benefit most.

We like to take photos and occasionally videos of our events to use on our website and social media, please let us know if you do not want to be photographed.

Cancellation Policy

We understand that there may be times where you need to cancel your booking.  Our cancellation policy is outlined here.