This six-minute video describes how Voices, a citizen's group in Antigonish concerned about the loss of their downtown grocery store, has developed a Good Food Box program as a practical way of increasing customer access to local food.

Christine Johnson relates a story of local cooperative activity involving many businesses, organizations and agencies, with the result that the whole local food economy in and around Antigonish Nova Scotia has been strengthened.

This is one example of the kind of public engagement in issues around local food that is driving development of direct sale, one of the fastest growing sectors in Nova Scotia agriculture.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) describes a way for the broader community to organize its food-buying so as to directly support one or more local producers. Although the arrangements take many forms, the basic idea is that a group of customers agrees to purchase a certain amount of the production from a given farm, or processor.

Some of the cost may be paid in advance, so the producer can cover some of their early season expenses.

In this way, the wider community has an opportunity to directly invest in the local food economy, and to receive greater value with their food purchases.

Christine is describing a Good Food Box program, in which an agency (Voices Antigonish) coordinates supply from a number of sources, and distribution to families who are subscribers to the program.

Here is a link to a 5 min video that describes another of the variations on the CSA model.

Here is a link to the survey Voices Antigonish used to identify customers.

Contact

Christine Johnson

(902) 867-3224

by email here