Describe the Issue or Situation.

Community Supported Agriculture is a difficult concept for farmers to convey to their potential customers. This purchasing agreement is intense and requires a lot of investment from customers, meaning that the marketing portion of the selling creates a very heavy and disproportionate lift for the farmers to be successful.

Describe the Outreach or Educational Program Response (and Partners, if applicable).

The Center for Crop Diversification played a major role in organizing and executing the National CSA Week and KY Proud CSA Week promotional campaigns this year. We created, organized, and distributed content to nearly 3,000 farms across the country.

Provide the Number and Description(s) of Participants/Target Audience.

The marketing package we helped to create for the National CSA Week promotional campaign had 2,940 downloads from CSA farms around the country.

Provide a Statement of Outcomes or Program Impact. Please note that the outcomes statement must use evaluation data to describe the change(s) that occurred in individuals, groups, families, businesses, or in the community because of the program/outreach.

We had overwhelmingly positive responses from the CSA farms that used the resources we created. One farm said, "we secured 40% more CSA members in three months using this [marketing package." Another farmer noted, "The content and inspiration to help push through a week of promo, while collaborating with other farms, meant I got 30-40% of my sign-ups completed during CSA week. You produce a lot of helpful content, I think there's something in there for every farm. The whole package really helps motivate me to do it and I'm so grateful it exists because I think all of us posting about it together at the same time really increases our collective reach."