Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA for short, has become popular over the last 20 years. The standard model is for a farmer to offer a certain number of "shares" to local residents, who then are entitled to a portion of the farmer's harvest. And now is the time for Mainers to sign up.

This is the Happy Town Farm in Orland, one of a growing number of Maine farms that offer community suppored agriculture to local residents.

"The philosophy of the CSA is that the customer shares in the risks and in the benefits with the farmer," says Happy Town Farm owner Paul Volckhausen. Volckhausen says he usually has about 100 CSA subscribers each year, who help stabilize the farm's cash flow and shrae the risk of a bad year.

"The customer in the CSA pays up front when the farmer really needs the money, and in general the farmer is good at producing food. That's what they're doing," he says. "And so in general you'll get a good deal. But there are years, and hopefully not too many, when weather is like it was last year."

In return for their investment in the farm, Happy Town's CSA subscribers get a significant discount on their produce, which is also sold at the Ellsworth Farmers market. Subscribers also get a lot of food, so in some cases may go halves with another family.

And Volckhausen says CSA members must also learn how to make the most of, say, five pounds of kale. "That's part of our program, is trying to educate people about how to use vegetables that they're not used to getting -- eggplant or swiss chard -- we're trying to develop recipes and teach people how do use those vegetables," he says. "And then if it is too much, how to preserve them, how to can them or freeze them and save some of that for the winter time."

This year, Happy Town Farm is teaming up with the Union Supported Agriculture CSA to make it possible for subscribers to use their EBT, or foodstamp cards, to purchase shares.

"We are doing outreach specifically to working class people, to union workers and also to low-wage workers and people who have a tough time accessing local food," says Laura Binger, an organizer at Food and Medicine, a nonprofit in Brewer that coordinates the Union Supported Agriculture CSA. Her group buys shares from Happy Town Farm in advance of the summer, then collects weekly EBT payments from subscribers.

"And certainly in the EBT program, our approval came in later in the season, so we're starting to get more and more interest from people," Binger says. "And we're finding that most of the people we talk to who purchase food with EBT didn't know they could use EBT at a farmers market or anything like that."

Using EBT to purchase vegetables from CSAs is just one way farmers are getting creative in attracting subscribers. Some farms have "market-style" CSAs, where members have some degree of choice in what goes into their boxes. And farms with the means will include the option for shareholders to buy shares of eggs, meat, fruit, flowers and other products.

"Some farms offer some pick-your-own crops and a handful of farms will actually deliver right to your house," says Melissa White Pillsbury, organic marketing coordinator at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, or MOFGA. She says the number of farms offering CSA shares has doubled in the last four years.

"There are about 150 or so farms that I know of that offer some kind of CSA share, and that represents over 6,000 shares so we're hitting about 1.5 percent of Maine households buying a CSA share," she says.

Pillsbury attributes the growth to increased public interest in local foods, farmers' awareness and consumer acceptance of the CSA model, and outreach from MOFGA.

At Happy Town Farm, a four-person share for 16 weeks is $400. Volkhausen says he hopes to attract at least 100 members this year.

The better the growing season, he says, the better the deal for customers, "If they paid for a $400 share in 2008, they got somewhere in the range of $600 worth of food," he says. "Last year they paid $400 and they got between $450 and $500 worth of food."

MOFGA publishes a statewide directory of farms that offer CSA shares. To link to that, click here.