It’s Easier Than Ever to Eat Close to Home in the Bay Area

You’ll also find a listing of CSAs that serve the Bay Area. The CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, model is a direct marketing method that allows locavores to become “subscribers” to a local farm. In exchange for an upfront fee, you can receive a box of fresh seasonal produce each week, direct from the farm, and most likely harvested within the past twenty-four hours! By providing farmers with the income they need up front, you’ll help ensure that sustainable family farms stay in business.

For those times when cooking a meal at home is not in the cards, the guide also features restaurants and artisans who source ingredients from local farms. If your favorite restaurant doesn’t feature ingredients from close by—ask them! Ask your server which dishes on the menu feature local delights, and let them know that eating local matters to you. For the most comprehensive guide to local food in California, use our Web site, updated throughout the year and searchable by county and zip code.

After all, there’s never been a more vital time to support the farmers that practice the kind agriculture that you believe in. American farmers have been losing their farms at an alarming rate as our food system has become consolidated into fewer and fewer corporate hands. You can help reverse this trend by keeping the money you spend on food circulating within your local food system, and the Buy Fresh Buy Local Guide has already done half the work for you! There’s also never been a more exciting –or delicious!- time to connect with the food you eat, whether it’s bought fresh from the farmer you see every week at the market, or straight from your own backyard.

By Logan Harris