More and more northern Michigan employees are exchanging salary for celery. And peas, cabbage, and you name it.

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) has been as hot as a home-grown jalapeño for the past decade, with individuals and families buying subscriptions to a farm for a season in return for regular deliveries of fresh-from-the-farm vegetables.

“Last [month], they had strawberries that were amazing,” says Heather Fraizer, picking up her weekly box, along with dozens of other Munson Medical Center employees on a recent Thursday. Overall, though, there’s been one drawback.

“I’ve been really busy and I’m not eating all of it,” she tells Andrea Romeyn (pictured above left), who owns Providence Organic Farm in Central Lake. Romeyn and her daughter Maia are handing out boxes from an enclosed freight truck.

“I have a recipe for you,” Romeyn says, showing Fraizer a copy of the weekly newsletter that comes with this week’s rainbow chard and other greens and veggies. She turns to the recipe for “A little bit of everything stir-fry.”

Munson officials like that the benefit encourages a healthier employee, and Alison Quiring, a nurse practitioner, says it helps her when she’s nudging her patients toward a healthier lifestyle.

“I have to practice what I preach,” she says. “I see a lot of people with diabetes and things made better by eating healthy.”

It’s also been a shot in the arm to Romeyn’s farm. 

“Farming is such a risky venture,” she says. “If it wasn’t for the CSA, I don’t think we could make it. It’s the backbone of our farm.”

Interlochen Center for the Arts also offers a CSA benefit to its workers through Second Spring Farm (there's also a campus greenhouse, but that’s geared toward education, not production, says Emily Umbarger, who oversees it. What is grown is given to the campus cafeteria).

Taste the Local Difference, the Traverse City-based organization that promotes and markets locally grown foods, is pairing up employers with CSA farms. The businesses sign up interested staff who can purchase regular vegetable deliveries, often through payroll deduction. Some companies also kick in a bit of the cost as an incentive. 

“We’re testing out this market,” says Paula Martin, community health coordinator with the organization. Employers have long offered fitness benefits, like gym memberships.

“It’s more difficult to offer nutrition benefits,” Martin says. The group works with six farms and tries to pair them with companies based on proximity and on the employees’ stated tastes. For instance, some like to try unusual and exotic vegetables, while others may prefer to stick with carrots, potatoes and such more common to the American diet.

Up to one-third of the employees at Bay Motor Products have tried the program. Most have stuck with it enthusiastically, though others have been overwhelmed with the quantity.

“For some, it’s a lot more vegetables than they thought it would be,” says Andy Robitshek, president of Bay Motor. “It’s definitely an abundance.”

Some have remedied that by splitting a subscription with a co-worker.

“It’s great for the company and great for people to eat better,” he says.

Even smaller businesses are getting into it, as Ben Holmes, owner of Market 72, has sold several single subscriptions to real estate and other offices downtown. Often they award the basket to a different employee each week. Holmes says he hopes to see some of the employees deciding to subscribe and get the benefit well into the fall.