Registration for our Summer 2012 season is now open!  We have two pickup options available – at the Charlottesville City Market or in conjunction with a Bellair Farm CSA order.  Please follow the “Shares at Charlottesville City Market” or “Pickup with Bellair Farm CSA” links above to order.

Catfish Pond at Blackwood Farm

The Cville Community-Supported Fishery (CSF) is working with the Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Virginia Aqua-Farmers Network to bring together local fishermen and fish consumers in and around Charlottesville, Virginia.

Based on the community-supported agriculture (CSA) model, CSFs facilitate the pre-payment by consumers for a share of the fish harvest of select local fishermen.  On a biweekly basis, CSF members will be able to pick up pre-ordered quantities of fish directly from fishermen, providing consumers with fresh, local seafood and providing local fisheries with a guaranteed market.  In the process, the Cville CSF will help establish a connection between consumers and fishermen, support small-scale farming, and limit the travel distance of food from farm to plate.

As a result, the CSF will help improve three important aspects of sustainability, the environment, the economy, and social equity.  By providing advance payments, CSF members will help support the livelihoods of farmers while supporting an environmentally-responsible manner of raising fish, an especially important task in a time when fish consumption exceeds the rate at which fish can reproduce and numerous chemicals and antibiotics are used in the raising of fish.  Further, with 80 percent of the United States’ fish consumption imported, only 2 percent of which is checked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the safety of consuming fish continues to be questionable.

As members of the Cville CSF, residents will be able to purchase fish in a highly transparent manner – directly from the fisheries – and can be ensured that their fish is raised without the use of chemicals or hormones and in pristine freshwater ponds.  And as the CSF grows, a community surrounding the fish can aid in the sharing of recipes, the variety of fish available, and the spread of fish consumption in Charlottesville from local, sustainable sources.

For more information about the advantages of joining a CSF, please find a helpful article from The Boston Globe.  For more information about many of the problems associated with the majority of the seafood consumed in the United States, please see this news clip from NBC News.

For more information about the Cville CSF and the fisheries providing seafood for the CSF, please follow the links at the top of the page.

Catfish at Blackwood Farm

Doug Dickerson, Co-Founder of the Cville CSF, and Dr. Lynn Blackwood, Founder of the Virginia Aqua-Farmers Network and Owner of Blackwood Farm