Genesee Valley Organic Community Supported Agriculture

Ok first of all, some housekeeping: The address listed for this business is for Abundance Cooperative Market. This is the pick up location for Rochester members. Peacework Farm is located in Newark, that is where the crops are grown.
I was only involved in this CSA for one year, but it was a great experience and would recommend it to anyone who loves their organic veggies, is interested in knowing where their food comes from, or is interested in investing in a local farm. (There are only two reasons why I did not participate again after the first year and those are the same reasons why I haven’t participated in any other local CSA– first of all you get a lot of veggies, even if you get a half share– normally this would be awesome but I have a small sized fridge and each week the haul would over flow it. The other reason is that I am not around as much in the summer to pick up my share. Neither reason reflects poorly on GVOCSA… in fact that is a testament to how large your pick up will be.)
GVOCSA requires members to participate in a few farm-​work and distribution shifts during the season. This might not be for everyone, but I thought it was cool to help harvest the vegetables and to get a closer look at the farm operation. The type of work you will do varies depending when you go during the season. The distribution shifts are pretty simple– you go to Abundance and help prepare the vegetables to be picked up. That part is pretty easy, just some weighing and bagging.
The spread of vegetables you get is great. I learned to love some new greens through this CSA. The season is 26 weeks. The price looks steep initially, but if you break it out by week it is not too bad, especially when you consider what the same volume of organic veggies would cost you at Wegmans. The quality of the produce you will get from here is really great, if you work a sorting shift at the farm you will see what I mean. A lot of care is put into getting the vegetables from the farm to the members in great condition.
I think the main difference for GVOCSA versus other local CSAs is that they have the member participation. Also, everyone I came in contact with through the CSA was really nice, so you can count on working your few shifts with some great people. Their webpage has a lot of other useful information on it and if you are interested you should probably go to their new member information meeting that are held just before the sign up period.