52 Bonus: 5 Questions to Ask Before Starting a CSA (with Lauren Rudersdorf)
April 14, 2020 by Corinna
It’s April 14, 2020, and the world is being ravaged by the COVID-19 virus.
Farmers everywhere are facing closed farmer’s markets, restaurant sales that have evaporated, and wholesale clients pushing the pause button. Growers need a place to move their product.
As a result, the CSA movement has surged with a vengeance, as customers are frantically looking for ways for farmers to get their produce to them.
But before you begin trouble-shooting and trying to figure out how to start a CSA, there’s an important question you should ask first.
Should you do one at all?
In this episode, I invite my guest Lauren Rudersdorf from RaleighsHillsideFarm.com back to the show, to talk through this very question. Lauren walks us through 5 questions to ask yourself before starting a CSA (especially if you want to be successful at it in the long-term).
We also talk through what’s at stake for the CSA movement at large if you get this wrong.
Hit play and let’s get started!
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Lauren Rudersdorf is a CSA farmer, coach, food blogger, recipe developer, storyteller, social media enthusiast, and educator obsessed with the CSA model and helping farmers execute it well in order to find more stability, profitability and success on their farms. She’s been farming with her husband Kyle in southern Wisconsin for the last eight years at Raleigh’s Hillside Farm. Together, they’ve grown their CSA membership from 8 to 380 members in a saturated CSA market.
In 2019, with funding from North Central SARE, Lauren launched a collaborative project with CSA farmers across the Midwest to create a video series to help aspiring and beginning farmers determine if CSA is the right model for their farm business. The series will launch in the winter of 2020. Lauren is a Soil Sister and farm member of FairShare CSA Coalition. Her blog, The Leek & The Carrot, provides original recipe content for fellow CSA farmers and other local publications.
Some of the resources mentioned in this episode:
- Find my Facebook group for farmers! I jump in here every week to teach farmers tips and fundamentals of marketing.
- Join our webinar “The 3 Mistakes Rookie CSA Farmers Make (and How To Avoid Them)” this Friday, April 17, at 5 PM EST. You can register at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/csawebinar.
- Download our free “CSA Quickstart First Season Checklist” — this 3-page PDF is a detailed checklist of the items and decisions you need to cover to get your CSA up and running.
- My CSA Membership Academy — This tool has been a lifeline for my CSA members, and the price goes up in a month. Join this online library on a monthly or annual basis and get access to the “success path” I’ve created for my CSA members to help them become really good at using their box. I have a lot of farmers who purchase the Academy to help them get ideas and templates for their own training system. Join now for a month, and cancel anytime! The price will be going up in April, 2020, so lock your price in by ordering this month.
- Lauren is my life coach, and she’s great!! I highly recommend her! To learn more about Lauren Rudersdorf and her coaching services email her at theleekandthecarrot@gmail.com or follow her on Instagram @theleekandthecarrot.
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My hope is to feature guests periodically on the show. If you know someone who is innovating in the area of marketing as a farmer, please send me an email at mydigitalfarmers@gmail.com.
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