Trend Alert: NSAs are like CSAs for Urbanites

Community Supported Agriculture has come a long way in a short time. In the practice, a farmer allows families to buy shares of his or her farm in exchange for a guaranteed flow of fresh vegetables. Recently, however, groups of urbanites decided that they want in on the fun. Enter the NSA, or Neighborhood Supported Agriculture.

It's a simple enough concept: grow food in vacant lots, yards, and other small plots, and combine the bounty into one big pot. Not surprisingly, different people have different ideas on how to successfully implement NSAs in their neighborhoods.

In Portland, the city's long wait list for community garden space spurred the invention of yard-sharing, in which local residents share their yard space with those who don't have plots of their own. Food not Lawns, another Portland organization, aims to bring the concepts of permaculture and food cycles into low-income communities, breaking the food access barrier that oftentimes limits those of lower socioeconomic status.

Seattle's city council is backing up its local citizens' desire to grow and share food by scrapping laws that prevent people from selling their own backyard produce. Plus, like Portland, Seattle has an "online dating site" that matches would-be gardeners with unused land available for farming. Over in Boulder, CO, where the term NSA was reportedly first mentioned, at least 30 families benefit from the harvest of what they're calling a "multi-plot farm." Put simply, that's 11 backyards and two church lots.

And of course, the Bay Area is weighing in with its winning hand. In San Francisco, former art students Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Galloway created Little City Gardens, an urban micro-farm. Budner told the San Francisco Chronicle that "There are a lot of obstacles in terms of how to enter the food economy as a really small producer." Still, she and Galloway are working hard at their small business and getting hugely noticed in the process. Last season, their salad mix, which includes a range of 25 greens, herbs, and edible flowers, was featured at Bar Tartine, one of the city's foodie hot spots.

At the risk of gushing, I can't explain how exciting this movement is—possibly revolutionary. The benefits are innumerable, but just to name a few: the use of vacant lots, the provision of healthy food in urban food deserts, environmental education within the urban centers, and best of all, folks being right neighborly toward each other. Take that, Archer Daniels Midland! What kind of neighbor are you?

Photo Credit: Creative Commons