ON a recent drizzly afternoon in Bushwick, Brooklyn, members of the Bushwick Food Cooperative gathered beneath a tent in a ramshackle backyard to claim their share of the weekly harvest. They picked through crates of cilantro and rosemary from a rooftop farm in Long Island City, Queens, and examined pastured eggs from an Amish farm cooperative in Pennsylvania.

Benn Rasmussen, a 29-year-old dancer who lives with nine people in a sprawling loft nearby, was signing people in. Shira Shaham, 30, a member of the collectively run bike shop Band of Bicycles, was keeping track of the price list. Then Ariel de Leon, who is affiliated with the Food Not Bombs anarchist movement, arrived with an extra blue Ikea bag for Ms. Shaham to carry her produce in.

“My friend makes women’s swimsuits out of those,” someone said.

“I use them to plant tomatoes in,” Ms. de Leon replied.