EASTERN IOWA- Sometimes you go to a restaurant or a grocery store, and they don't have any tomatoes or jalapeno peppers because of a salmonella scare. But many families in eastern Iowa don't have that fear because they know exactly where their food is coming from. They put their trust in local farmers who rely on them to make a living.

Susan Jutz is one of those farmers. She welcomes her customers to the Wednesday Farmer's Market in Iowa City. Every week familiar faces stop by her crowded corner, fill bags full of vegetables, and walk away without opening their wallets. That's the way a Community Supported Agriculture Group, or CSA, works.

Local Harvest CSA members like Traci Meineke say it's like having a garden, but you don't have to do anything with it. Every year members buy in to the farm before Jutz begins planting. They pay $370 for five months of food delivered fresh from all summer long. While the amount of food varies each week, for about 19 dollars a week, customers pick up more than enough produce to feed two adults.

Customers like Nancy Fries say the perk is knowing where your food is picked - information you can't always get at the grocery store.

"We don't really know what we are eating, and I like to know what I am eating. I think it's important," says Fries.

Just as important, Josh Raulerson says, is supporting Iowans.

"It feels good to know you are supporting a local farmer in the area. That's pretty big." Raulerson goes on to say, "We've gotten some foods we have never seen before or had any idea how to cook."

In its 12 years, the Local Harvest CSA has never seen this many members, up fifty families from last year. This summer at ZJ Farms in Johnson County,, about a half dozen people are trying to feed more than 250 families as part of the Local Harvest CSA.

Jutz says she won't be surprised if more CSAs sprout up, especially as food prices, in general, grow. But she says the strongest selling point for CSAs is the fresh factor, compliments of a fellow Iowan.

"We're picking it today, out there picking it, and it will be in their houses tonight," says Jutz.

It's food fresh from the farm without all the hard work.

ZJ Farms
http://www.zjfarms.com/index.html

Iowa CSAs
http://www.iowaagriculture.gov/AgDiversification/csaDirectory.asp

http://www.iowaagriculture.gov/iowaProducts.asp