Kate Kampner is a reporter with the Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
When Robin Berger became a member of the Intervale Community Farm CSA in 1998, she said that toward the end of the summer pickups, in October, the farm would have a membership survey and invite members for hot cider.
But these days, Berger said, “It is no longer cold in October.”
As global temperatures continue breaking records, farmers worldwide are seeing disruptions in their farming schedules, including shifting harvesting times and changing crop choices.
CSAs, an agricultural business model which stands for community supported agriculture, is a program in which members sign up for weekly shares to get a promised set of produce for the year prior to harvesting season. This model provides farms with a secured revenue and an understanding on what they need to grow and what equipment to buy to make themselves profitable.
While farms try to adjust their CSA formats by making them more flexible or diversifying their crops, they are also trying to keep membership afloat. Berger, along with many other longtime CSA members, has noticed climate disruptions, such as warmer weather and flooding creeping into their produce-filled lives. Members are having to adjust their expectations on what crops they’re receiving as well as alter their grocery store needs. While some choose to stick with it, others don’t put up with the insecurity.
In 2023 and 2024, the Intervale Community Farm was hit by summer flooding that damaged and destroyed many farms and homes. While the land was able to recover, the farm still lost many of their regular products, including carrots, butternut squash and onions, Berger said.
“There are some things they just couldn’t plant again in time for them to get a harvest,” Berger said. She said she and other CSA members have talked about how they have to remember which produce they now have to get at the grocery store that they normally don’t.
“I’m just out of practice, all my onions have come from the farm basically since they’ve had a CSA,” Berger said.
She also saw how members used to get Brussels sprouts at the summer share, but are now only available for the winter share. Berger said this is because “it’s just not going to frost before the end of the summer share,” due to the warmer weather carrying into the fall. Regardless of changes in her produce lifestyle, Berger never considered ending her CSA membership.
However, some CSA members might have felt differently when they saw changes in their subscription.
Andy Jones, the Intervale’s farm manager, said the team typically saw a 90% membership renewal rate from one year to the next, but after the floods, they saw it drop to 80–85%. This decrease was largely due to a proportion of newer members who didn’t have a CSA track record.
Jones said this wasn’t a shock. He saw the same drop in members in 2011 and 2012 when Hurricane Irene hit. In the long run, the farm has a successful track record of consumer value and quality of produce, he said.
“People that have been with us for many years can see that,” Jones said. “It’s harder to do that when you’re brand new.”
The Farm Upstream, a certified organic farm in Jericho, is in its first season doing a CSA and trying to keep their model — which is based on the Intervale farm — as flexible as possible for members. This includes occasional choice in produce and adjusting pick-up times if needed.
“We’re trying to create models that work for people’s lifestyles,” said Jake Kornfeld, one of the five owners of the farm.
The team knows what to expect when it comes to preparing for floods and climate adaptation as all five of them have worked with CSAs in the past. One of the farm owners, Tucker Andrews, saw his previous farm get wiped out last summer by floods.
The farm’s land, which was meticulously chosen, steers clear of floodplains for the most part and has well-drained soil. The team also diversifies their crops and practices successive planting, the process of planting a crop on the same field that was just harvested, which allows for seasonal variability.
“If some catastrophe happens, we can bounce back in a couple of weeks, and that should be okay,” Kornfeld said.
The owners plan on hosting community events with their members, including farm tours and potlucks. “It’s just a way to make sure people feel like they’re a part of something that’s more than a transaction,” Kornfeld said.
Jeanette Berry, another longtime member of the Intervale CSA, said even though there was crop loss on the farm, it never crossed her mind to quit the farm because of it. “The produce that we got (after the floods) was still overall cheaper than if we bought it at the store,” she said.
Berry said some Intervale CSA members were offered a partial refund in response to the missing produce. But she didn’t even consider taking it. “It’s a minor contribution to the farm, to not ask for a refund on a few weeks of lost crops,” Berry said.
The only drawback of the CSA that Berry could think of was that she had too many vegetables in her refrigerator. “We have so much choice in what we can pick up,” she said.
That’s the goal for Ananda Gardens, a Vermont CSA based in Montpelier that focuses a lot of time and energy on making sure there are options for their members. The farm offers produce delivery and pickups for their CSA and has 60 to 80 different varieties of crops.
“That’s one of the benefits of having a very diversified CSA,” said Melisa Oliva, one of the owners of the farm, “You don’t have all your eggs in one basket.”
The farm was minimally impacted by the 2023 flooding when they lost a greenhouse of tomatoes. Oliva said that the potatoes that they get from a partnership with another farm seemed limited at the time of the flooding.
“It’s on the back burner all the time,” Oliva said about extreme weather events in the state. “When are we going to be impacted? What is going to happen?”
Although they haven’t dealt with a lot of rainfall this year, the farm has made adjustments due to summer heat waves, she said. The team placed a cover mesh in their greenhouses because the crops can burn from the heat. They’ve also had to shift their farmwork earlier. “By 3 p.m., it’s just too warm,” Oliva said.
But this internal preparation doesn’t stop or limit her team. “We’re committing to planting those tomatoes, and we are committed together to strengthen the fabric of the local economy,” Oliva said.
