The CSA Network UK team meet in the Midlands
Date Published: 21st April 2026
This April, our staff team and board of directors visited the Midlands, as an opportunity to gather the people behind the CSA Network from the various places of the UK we live and work.. from Cornwall to Yorkshire to Northern Ireland!
We visited 4 established CSAs: Canalside Community Farm in Leamington Spa, Five Acre Community Farm in Coventry, Community Harvest Whetstone in South Leicestershire and Polebrook Hayes Farm near Leicester.
The visit gave us the opportunity to discuss the vision for the Network going forward and meet the people and volunteers doing the real work on the ground.
Making it work
We discussed the draft outcomes of our ‘Economics of CSA’ survey, the results of which we hope to publish soon and which informed our meeting with Minister Dame Angela Eagle about DEFRA support for CSAs.
All of those we visited asked us how other CSA farms were making it work in such a difficult economic environment, with much discussion about high wage bills and lack of time for marketing. Despite this we saw that although membership has dropped off since Covid, all of the CSAs we visited were managing to retain a fairly stable membership. They all differed in governance, one was set up as a cooperative with most members heavily involved in the farm and another was community-owned with drop-off points for vegetables in the nearby city centre, allowing less involved members to access their share more easily.
None of the farms we visited were reliant on grant funding and were sustaining themselves through share income with share numbers ranging from around 30 to 140 across the farms. Canalside Community Farm talked us through how they came together to buy the farm as a community, including a fruit orchard and more fields for the farm.
The power of the community
One of the strongest messages was the unique power of the community behind CSA farms. All of the CSAs we visited had a really strong relationship with their members, volunteers and local communities and in return felt very supported. CSAs offered a variety of inclusion mechanisms including a dedicated space and farming sessions for adults with disabilities, seasonal free gatherings at the farm for the community to get together, and a space for children to play while their parents collected their shares or socialised.
Another key message was the real resilience of CSA farms and how they can play a huge part in UK food security. This is only going to increase in importance and we continue to advocate for you all on this point.
We discussed the vision of the Network moving forward and that we still want to see a thriving CSA in every neighbourhood but may need to adjust the way we work to best support CSA through these difficult times. We will continue to raise awareness of CSA as the best combined option for people, planet and producer and to lobby government bodies in every UK nation to better support CSA and ensure you are paid and supported for the huge amount of (often unsung) work you do and benefit you bring.
