![]() ![]() Membership spread to Manhattan, Williamsburg in Brooklyn and around Long Island. For many farmers, “wholesale crops aren’t making ends meet,” Menasha said. Growers on Long Island said they get as much as twice per pound for their produce from CSAs as they would get from a wholesaler. While farms with CSAs are in the minority, “It is a very successful business model,” Menasha said. Suffolk County, where most of Long Island’s farms are located, had 604 farms in 2012, a 3 percent gain from 2007, according to the USDA’s 2012 Census of Agriculture, the latest available. “Financially, CSAs provide growers with money early in the season when money typically isn’t coming in, and reduce the amount of loans and debt a farmer might otherwise accrue,” she said. Department of Agriculture run their own CSAs, and active CSAs number about 30 to 35 here, she said. Sandy Menasha, a vegetable and potato specialist at the Cornell Cooperative Extension, called CSAs “a major shift from the way farmers typically made money in years past.” About 90 percent of Long Island’s roughly 15 farms that have been certified organic by the U.S. SEE PHOTOSAverage weekly wages: $1,535 in Texas, $1,349 in Suffolk ![]()
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