Swallowtail Farm

What is Community Supported Agriculture?

Community Supported Agriculture at its root is the reconnection of people to their food, and to the farms that grow it. Through the direct support of a local farm, the shareholder enters into a relationship with the farmer of their food that provides profound stability for the farmer, and the freshest possible local, seasonal eating for the shareholder.

As a model for the future of sustainable agriculture, CSA serves to develop healthy and sustainable food sources and a strong local economy; to encourage healthy land stewardship; to create and maintain a stable and balanced relationship between rural and urban communities; and to re-cultivate the sustainable scale of small family farms.  The relationship that is created between farmer and shareholder grants the farmer a fair & appreciative market, and simultaneously provides the consumer with the the highest quality, freshest produce available, along with a personal connection to the land where it is grown and the people who grow it. Operating costs in farming are typically heavily weighted toward the beginning of the season, and include everything from seed to compost to equipment maintenance to infrastructure improvement to farm crew salaries. With an upfront commitment, CSA members provide literal seed money for the farm, which is profoundly helpful in meeting the challenges of beginning a new season.

This season, our CSA will be offered in the form of our Farm Card. This will provide the greatest possible flexibility for both farmers and customers, and will allow use of the card for everything from market sales to store purchases (at both new locations), farm dining events, online orders, and anything else we offer. This includes every product type that we offer from the farm - veggies, cut flowers, dairy, eggs, meats - as well as events, and even other products that we will offer through our retail locations. We have a limited number of cards available and will begin sales late October 2024.

Our Produce

Our goal every week is to provide our shareholders with the freshest, most nutritious food available. Using biodynamic and regenerative farming methods we deliver healthy produce with no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or any other chemicals in our fields or on our plants. Our food is clean and supremely nourishing.

We will be sharing the following vegetables, herbs and cut flowers from our fields:

Our Animal Products:

Our animal products are produced using nature as our guide. We have a flock of approximately 250 laying hens that include more than 10 different layer breeds to ensure health through diversity. We practice rotational grazing, moving our chickens weekly to follow our herd of dairy cows in the pasture. Our chickens are never enclosed in pins or kept from the outdoors. Our dairy cows are raised on our farm from birth, and are 100% grass-grazed—we never feed our cows grain or give antibiotics, vaccinations, or chemicals unless necessary for the imminent health of the animal. Our laying hens and dairy herd are Certified Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) through A Greener World—click here to learn more. Our heritage-breed pigs are also born on our farm and raised in pasture, oak forest, pond wetland and mud to ensure ample rooting, burrowing, grazing, and foraging. Our Katahdin sheep flock act as our veggie bed flippers, our lawn mowers, our weeding team, and our natural fertilizers. They are rotated every 2-5 days onto new patches of field, lawn, or both, and keep the farm clean and tidy while growing healthy and leaving their nourishing manure behind.

Members will also have the option to try new products as they become available, and to purchase discounted meat shares (beef, lamb, and pork) before offered to the general public.