2023 Program Announcement

Hua foundation, in partnership with Brave Child Farm, is pleased to announce that we are bringing back the Choi Box Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program for 2023.

This year’s pickups will be at the Britannia Community Services Centre. Date and time is tentatively on Wednesdays between 4-6pm.

The program will run with recommended COVID-19 health and safety practices in place.

Becoming a member of the CSA program will have big ripple effects that extend beyond your own kitchen. Members will buy CSA shares from Brave Child Farm, a small local business that farms using ecologically responsible methods to grow culturally relevant vegetables. You’ll support two local farmers in growing this year’s harvest, taking on a share of the farm’s bounty and risk. And through this CSA program you’ll be receiving 16 weeks of fresh, local produce, delivered directly from their farm to our weekly depot, ready for pickup. Thank you for your support of a healthy and community supported local food system.

Update July 26, 2023: The 2023 season is full!

The Choi Box CSA 2023 season is full.
Please join our waitlist by completing this form here (https://bit.ly/ChoiBox2023Waitlist).

Waitlist requests are prioritized in the order they are received. We will contact you if any shares open up during the season. Thanks for your interest in the program!

Questions about the CSA?

Send us a message

What is the Choi Box?

The Choi Box is hua foundation’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Hua started it in 2015 to support Asian diasporic farmers in the Metro Vancouver area. In six seasons of stewarding the Choi Box CSA, we have had the pleasure of working with various farmers to bring fresh, organic-practice, and culturally relevant produce to CSA members picking up weekly shares in and around Chinatown.

Why Choi?

Choi (菜) is a Chinese word for vegetables. While most people may be familiar with bok choi or pak choi, there exists a beautiful variety of choi that can be grown locally in and around Metro Vancouver (see our Sprouting Choi Guide for details).

The Choi Box is hua foundation’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Hua started it in 2015 to support Asian diasporic farmers in the Metro Vancouver area. In seven seasons of stewarding the Choi Box CSA, we have had the pleasure of working with various farmers to bring fresh, organic-practice, and culturally relevant produce to CSA members picking up weekly shares in Chinatown.

Chinese farmers have been growing food along the delta region of BC’s Lower Mainland since the late 1800s. Discriminatory labour laws and practices at the time meant that people of Chinese ancestry were prohibited from working in more professionalized sectors. Manual labour—including work in farming, laundries, and restaurants—marked some of the few sectors in which they were permitted to work.

Despite the systemic discrimination and explicit racism set to deter them, Chinese farmers produced up to 90% of BC’s vegetables by the 1920s. These vegetables, however, were typically familiar to European immigrants, such as tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, lettuce, radishes and potatoes. It wasn’t until the late 1900s that Chinese farmers began commercial production of vegetables that would have had a presence in their own home kitchens, such as bok choi, gai lan, and other chois.

The Choi Box CSA program is a celebration of the legacy of Chinese farmers on this land and their continual presence in shaping our food system. Each season, we partner with a farm to bring CSA members a unique selection of Asian vegetables that speak to this history.

The teikei (提携) system in Japan is a model of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) that has been around since the 1960s. Post WWII industrialization in Japan included the so-called “green revolution” that promised increased food production with the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and heavy mechanization. The resulting devastation to landscapes and human health sparked interest in alternative ways of engaging with food, the environment, and economic exchange. The teikei system set up a direct distribution system based on ecologically responsible practices that emphasized mutual assistance, democratic management and co-learning.

Around the same time in the United States, Dr. Booker T. Whatley, an African-American horticulturist and professor, began promoting the concept of a “clientele membership club” for accessing fresh, locally grown foods. Members paid an up-front fee to support a farmer’s incurring costs throughout the growing season, and members would harvest the produce themselves. It enabled the farmer to plan production, anticipate demand, and have a guaranteed market for their goods.

Today, the CSA model has been popularized, each unique to its context to connect consumers to farmers and build sustained relationships. This model provides the producer and consumer to make an exchange at fair prices and wages, and it allows both parties to share the risks and rewards of farming.

We are excited to be working with Brave Child Farm for a 5th season in 2023.

Yuko Suda is a professional civil engineer who decided to start farming during the growing season in order to do her part in fighting climate change, supporting the local ecology, and spending more time with her children. Yuko completed the Farming Practicum at the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at the University of British Columbia in 2017.

Mike Millar grew up in Vancouver and became interested in learning more about the food we eat while studying in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC. After spending a number of seasons at UBC Farm and developing a passion for farming, he is joining Yuko at Brave Child Farm to continue to grow healthy, local produce.

Yuko’s parents came to Canada from Japan in the late 1970s, and when they arrived first in Vancouver, BC, and then in Calgary, AB, there were no Japanese vegetables or food sold in the local grocery stores. Only a few specialty Asian markets existed, like a tiny tofu shop in downtown Calgary. Yuko’s mother tried very hard to create traditional Japanese meals using western ingredients. But it was never quite the same as using Japanese vegetables. The essence of Japanese cuisine was lost.

As Yuko became a parent, she started to think about what it means to be Japanese. She wanted to pass Japanese values to her children. During this time,one of her mother’s struggles of trying to raise Japanese children in Canada became apparent. There are Japanese values that don’t translate to the English language very well, like wabi-sabi, meaning the beauty within the imperfections of life and peacefully accepting the natural cycle of growth and decay. While those values may not be easily passed down using the limits of language, they can be conveyed through experiences, like a home-cooked meal. But without authentic Japanese ingredients, these values can be difficult to translate. This is where the desire to build a farm, focused on traditional Asian vegetables arose.

Membership Details

>Members will pick up their choi weekly on Wednesday evenings between 4:00 and 6:00pm* at Britannia Community Services Centre. (*Time and date are tentative and TBC soon).

>In the event that members are unable to pick up their weekly share or ask someone to pick it up on their behalf, the box will be donated to the Britannia Community Services Centre’s Food Security Program. Brave Child Farm cannot under any circumstances hold or deliver unclaimed weekly shares.

>The season is expected to run from June 21, 2023 to October 11, 2023 for a total of 16 weeks. The final dates will be set based on actual harvest schedules and will be provided to members one month in advance of the first CSA pick up date.

>Each share costs $585 for 16 weeks of vegetables.

>The weekly box generally consists of 7 to 9 seasonal farm items.

What does a weekly share look like?

◦ 7-9 seasonal farm items weekly

What Membership Looks Like

Gigi and I co-managed the CSA program with our farmer, Yuko, last season. Each week, Yuko would pull up in her Toyota Sienna, the van packed with farm goodies galore. We would unload the bins of veggies, all the while gushing at the beautiful eggplants and shishito peppers.

Our first members would arrive, and we’d tell them about how their turnip recipe they shared with us the previous week turned out. The family asks Yuko about her work week and she tells them that the fields are ripe from the long summer days, which means she has been working long days as well. As the morning turns to afternoon, other members step through the doors, some with long stories about the week that’s passed. Others zip in with their bikes.

At the end of the weekly CSA pick up, we load up Yuko’s van and send her off with encouragement, thanking her for our tote bags loaded up with sunshine for the week.

–Joyce Liao

When signing up and purchasing a CSA, all members agree to the following terms.

-As a member, I am purchasing a share in the farmer’s weekly harvest, and in doing so gain the opportunity to share in the seasonal abundance of a local farm.

-I recognize that farming is a seasonal and unpredictable undertaking, and the exact selections and quantities included in the weekly distribution will change as the season progresses.

-I agree to pick up produce at the agreed upon place and time. I may also make arrangements for a friend to pick up my share in my absence. If the produce is not picked up and prior arrangements have not been made, I understand that weeks’ share will be forfeited and Brave Child Farm will not be able to hold or deliver my share for me in any circumstance.

-I understand that the farmers will use all the expertise and tools at their disposal to provide me with the agreed-upon length of harvest and to minimize the challenges of weather, pests or plant disease, but in the event that forces of nature reduce or destroy a crop I will accept this with understanding.

-I agree to pay for the year’s share in advance in full to hua foundation, and that there are no refunds after committing to becoming a member.

By joining the Choi Box membership, I am agreeing to share the risks of farming with the farmer and our other members, but also in the rewards of a bountiful season.

The farmer(s) as a relational agreement with its members will:

Grow vegetables using organic practice,
Supply Asian vegetables that grow well in the climate and conditions of the farm,
Bring in a weekly share of vegetables, and
Send weekly email updates about the expected harvest.

Questions about the Choi Box CSA program?

Get in touch with us here.

Graphics and original text by Joyce Liao