Community Supported Agriculture Groups (CSA)

 CSA or GAS Groups (Groupes d'Achat Solidaire)

There are currently five CSA groups in Brussels (here they are called GAS), which are run autonomously by their members.  Pick up times take place every second Saturday, after the farmer brought his/her produce (veggie baskets and milk products), between 12:00 and 14:00. 

To know the dates of the pick up days, please take a look at this page:

'Calendrier-Agenda'

To contact someone of the GAS outside of the pick up times, you can write to:

gas-discussions@gas-bxl.collectifs.net

 The Ferme Arc-en Ciel delivers the produce of seasonal fruit and vegetables and the milk products come from the Ferme Jambjoule.How to start up your own CSA? How to join? At the moment, approximately 70 households order their vegetables and others products via the CSAs/GAS. However, to begin with, their participation fluctuated a lot, especially during the summer holidays. It was therefore necessary to change the approach. In 2006, in a series of meetings, the members of the GAS came together with the producers, in order to develop a “charter” or a set of rule, agreed upon both by both. The objective of the meeting was also to do a “health check” of the past experience of the GAS and to decide upon its future developments, especially on how to extend the network and how to make it more stable. Until then, the members could decide from one week to the other (fortnightly), whether they would order produce. However, since the February 2006 assembly, we put a more binding system into place, by setting up local contracts with the producer. Every household now agrees to purchase a part of the entire season’s produce (throughout one year regarding the Ferme Arc-en Ciel). Payment is done in one go in advance, per trimester, semester or per month. This kind of arrangement has already proven to be efficient in the US and in France (Associaiton pour le Maintien de l'Agriculture Paysanne - AMAP), as it assures much more security for the producers and the quality of the products for the consumers. If you would like further information, contact us via the GAS/CSA mailing list:gas-discussions@gas-bxl.collectifs.netYou can also go to the site of the GAS:  http://gas-bxl.collectifs.netOtherwise you can contact us via the contact sheet on our website and we’ll register your contact details in our contact base. In this way, you will be informed about the latest developments of our GAS/CSA network in Brussels. We would like to support you and help you setting up a new CSA/GAS group. People in Boitsfort and Woluwé have already contacted us to set up a GAS in their garage…meetings have been taking place to gather the people in their commune to join. A new GAS is also taking shape in Anderlecht. The CSAs come to life through the citizen’s initiative, thanks to you! Thanks to your practical involvement, the number of CSAs is growing in Belgium.As a means of comparison, in 2007 in France there were more than 300 AMAP (CSA schemes), which bring together approximately 8000 families! This number was reached after nearly 5 years. In Quebec, the ASC moment has developed since 1997 and in 2007 there were more than 8000 families in partnership with local producers (for a population of 7 million habitants). In Belgium it is more than time to get going, come into action! We are counting on you!For more information in the Ferme Arc-en Ciel, here are their contact details:

• Documentaire on La petite Radio, http://www.lapetiteradio.org/media16.html