Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is generally the practice of focusing on the local production of high quality foods using ecological, organic or biodynamic farming methods. The core design includes developing a cohesive consumer group that is willing to fund a whole season's budget in order to get quality foods. By CSA theory, the more a farm embraces whole-farm, whole-budget support, the more it can focus on quality and reduce the risk of food waste or financial loss. Most CSAs have a transparent whole season budget for producing a specified wide array of products for a set number of weeks a year as well as a 'shared risk and reward' agreement, i.e. that the consumers eat what the farmers grow even with the vagaries of seasonal growing.

CSA is a relatively new model of food production, sales, and distribution aimed at both increasing the quality of food and the quality of care given the land, plants and animals - while substantially reducing potential food losses and financial risks for the producers. CSA's focus is usually on a system of weekly delivery or pick-up of vegetables, sometimes also flowers, fruits, herbs, milk or meat products. An advantage of the close consumer-producer relationship is increased freshness of the produce, because it does not have to be shipped long distances. The close proximity of the farm to the members also helps the environment by reducing pollution caused by transporting the produce.

Typically, CSA farms are small, independent, labor-intensive, family farms. By providing a guaranteed market through prepaid annual sales, consumers essentially help finance farming operations. Individuals, families or groups do not pay for x pounds of produce, but rather support the budget of the whole farm and receive weekly what is seasonally ripe. This allows farmers to not only focus on quality growing, it can also somewhat level the playing field in a food market that favors usually large-scale, industrialized agriculture over local food. The cost of a share is usually competitively priced when compared to the same amount of vegetables conventionally-grown, partly because the cost of distribution is lowered.

The plants native to the Northeast have grown alongside other plants, fungus, insects, wildlife and plant diseases native to this area for thousands of years. As a result, a complex web of interrelationships has formed. In the process, native plants have evolved the ability to attract beneficial native wildlife such as pollinating and seed-dispersing insects and birds. They also have adapted the ability to repel or survive native organisms that harm them, such as plant viruses and munching insects.

Native plants often attract a wider variety of native animals than do exotic plants. In addition, the plants native to the Northeast are adapted to growing in this region's soils and climate, and so generally require less maintenance than non-natives.