I've spent a couple of weeks ranting about corporate agriculture, their complete disregard for the environment, for workers, for communities, for anything but their bottom line.

By now, Americans from across the political spectrum, from the Tea Party to the Coffee Party know all too well who their congressmen are really working for.

Whether you lean to the left or the right, there's no avoiding the fact that our federal government doesn't seem to care anymore. If we're going to fix things, we're going to have to do it on our own and at the local level.

This is where Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) comes into the picture.

Since the 1980s, CSA has really been catching on. The way it works is actually a lot like what happens when a businessman takes a company public by selling stock. The farmer offers shares of his harvest to local subscribers. These folks pay up front or make arrangements, and once the harvest starts coming in, they get to come out to the farm every week and pick up a box of fresh, seasonal produce.

This is a win-win system for everyone. When a CSA grower sells subscriptions, it helps their seasonal cash flow – so they don't wind up having to take out loans to buy my supplies so much. It also means they can do marketing early on in the year before they’re out working in their fields from sunrise to sunset.

It also gives the growers a chance to get to know you folks and for you to know them, building relationships – which means building stronger communities.

Meanwhile, you're going to be tasting food that's fresher and better (including better for you) than anything you've ever tasted. By eating seasonally and locally, you're helping the environment by reducing the use of fossil fuels (to offense to hard working truckers, but transporting food a thousand miles or more is an issue we need to be thinking about), and chances are good that you're going to taste some things you haven't tasted before.

Best of all is the effect it has on kids. If you're a parent, you know how hard it is to get kids to eat their vegetables. However, when the family buys into CSA, the kids experience a sense of ownership – and guess what? Suddenly, they're eating those veggies and loving it!

You can learn more, including where to find CSA farms in your community, at Local Harvest, an online non-profit organization dedicated to this growing institution.