Community Supported Agriculture

 

 

THE TRADING POST CSA CO-OP

The Trading Post is part of the Sustainable Agriculture Education program of the Lamborn Foundation – an educational, charitable, and religious nonprofit organization teaching all ages the importance of growing, preparing, and keeping local foods. The Trading Post’s mission is to support local producers, building a sustainable food network for the community. At the Trading Post this works through multi-farm Community Supported Agriculture a worldwide movement started by a bio-dynamic farmer – Trauger Grogh. (You can read about CSAs on the internet.): Community members contribute financial support, labor, and/or useful resources to the farmers, and the farmers give shares of their harvest and farm animal products to the community members.
The Trading Post is a pick up place where farmers can bring the shares of food for the community members to pick up in CSA Boxes. In most CSAs you get the box of food the farmer picks out for you. In a multi-farm CSA you can pick out the foods you want from a variety of share offerings based on the number of shares for which you have contributed.
The way you pick up CSA Shares of food at the Trading Post is with PostNote Pledges that promise to you your share ownership of the harvest and farm animals. You get these coupons when you contribute your cash, time, or resources to the farmers, and then turn them in when you receive the portion of food indicated. PostNote Pledges for CSA Shares of Local-Organic Food are transferrable, so anyone who has a coupon can pick up the share of food it represents.
In most CSAs there are risks, but in a multi-farm CSA those risks are minimized. Because the farmer needs your support even before the harvest, in a single farm CSA if there is a crop failure, you can lose your share of the harvest. But in a multi-farm CSA other farms can cover for the crop failure of one farm. At the Trading Post, you also have regional products to choose from as part of your share choice, so the risk of a scanty harvest in any one place is minimized. You can choose shares of organic anasazi beans from Adobe Milling in southern Colorado, organic rolled oats and millet from Golden Prairie on Colorado’s eastern slope, quinoa and potatoes from south central Colorado, Real salt from Utah, pecans and pinion nuts from New Mexico, and even oranges and lemons in the winter from Arizona. These products are brought to the Trading Post by way of community members who are traveling and are willing to gather foods on their way to minimize commercial trucking.
The Trading Post is open to the public for lunch and CSA pick up from 12 noon to 3 pm Sunday through Friday, closed Saturday. Ground to Table food preparation classes are from 10 to noon on Mondays with Chrys Bailey, and from 10 to noon on Thursdays for children with Alicia Michelson. Permaculture is offered on Sunday afternoons with a variety of teachers. Other classes are taught during the appropriate season such as distilling essential oils and hydrosols in the fall, as well as fermentation, drying, herbs, and other harvest classes.

THE TRADING POST FARM FOOD HUB
IS RUN BY LOCAL-ORGANIC VENTURES LLC

The Trading Post Farm Food Hub specializes in local-organic and regional foods, Ground to Table Value-added products and CSA Recipe Ingredients, Healthy Herbals, Co-op special orders, kitchen tools, farm enhancement products, and educational materials. It collaborates with the Lamborn Foundation’s Sustainable Agriculture Education program to provide an educational and charitable nonprofit multi-farm CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) called Local-Organic Values Exchange.
The Trading Post is open Sunday through Friday from 12 noon to 3 pm when lunches are served. An added 10% above purchases is the suggested donation for co-op membership, or $200 a year. The members who give $200 a year get a card that allows them other privileges such as to shop between 9 am and 3 pm every day but Saturday, or to call 970-433-1774 or 970-361-7260 to arrange other times to shop that are convenient, discounts, and many free classes.