Community-supported agriculture (CSA model) or cropsharing is a system that connects producers and consumers within the
food system closer by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms. It is an alternative socioeconomic model of
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming.
The model is a subcategory of
civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...
through local markets.
In return for subscribing to a harvest, subscribers receive either a weekly or bi-weekly box of produce or other farm goods. This includes in-season fruits, vegetables, and can expand to dried goods, eggs, milk, meat, etc. Typically, farmers try to cultivate a relationship with subscribers by sending weekly letters of what is happening on the farm, inviting them for harvest, or holding an open-farm event. Some CSAs provide for contributions of labor in lieu of a portion of subscription costs.
The term CSA is mostly used in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, but a variety of similar production and economic sub-systems are in use worldwide, in Austria and Germany as Solidarische Landwirtschaft ("solidarity farming") and in the
UK mainly in the
vegetable box scheme
A vegetable box scheme is an operation that delivers fresh fruit and vegetables, often locally grown and organic, either directly to the customer or to a local collection point. Typically the produce is sold as an ongoing weekly subscription and ...
.
History
The term "community-supported agriculture" was coined in the northeastern United States in the 1980s, influenced by European
biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts initially developed in 1924 by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). It was the first of the organic farming movements. It treats soil fertility ...
ideas formulated by
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as ...
.
Two European farmers, Jan Vander Tuin from Switzerland and Trauger Groh from Germany, brought European biodynamic farming ideas to the United States in the mid-1980s.
Vander Tuin had co-founded a community-supported agricultural project named Topinambur located near Zurich, Switzerland. Coinage of the term "community-supported agriculture" stems from Vander Tuin. This influence led to the separate and simultaneous creation of two CSAs in 1986. The CSA Garden at Great Barrington was created in Massachusetts by
Jan Vander Tuin, Susan Witt, and
Robyn Van En Robyn Van En (1947 – January 1997) was an American organic farmer and pioneer of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement.
Community Supported Agriculture
Robyn Van En was one of the originators of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) ...
. The Temple-Wilton Community Farm was created in New Hampshire by Anthony Graham, Trauger Groh, and Lincoln Geiger.
![Mustard Seed Farms Oregon CSA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Mustard_Seed_Farms_Oregon_CSA.jpg)
The CSA Garden at Great Barrington remained together until 1990 when many members left to form the Mahaiwe Harvest CSA. One of the original founders, Robyn Van En, became incredibly influential in the CSA movement in America and founded
CSA North America
CSA may refer to:
Arts and media
* Canadian Screen Awards, annual awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television
* Commission on Superhuman Activities, a fictional American government agency in Marvel Comics
* Crime Syndicate of Amer ...
in 1992.
The Temple-Wilton Community Garden was more successful and still operates as a CSA today. It became an important member of the Wilton community and it receives funding from state, federal, and local sources.
A parallel model called
Teikei
is a system of community-supported agriculture in Japan, where consumers purchase food directly from farmers. Teikei is closely associated with small-scale, local, organic farming, and volunteer-based, non-profit partnerships between producers a ...
existed in Japan as early as the mid-1960s. Similarly, Dr.
Booker T. Whatley, a professor of agriculture in Alabama, advocated for Clientele Membership Clubs as early as the 1960s.
Since the 1980s, community supported farms have been organized throughout North America—mainly in New England, the Northwest, the Pacific coast, the Upper-Midwest and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.
North America now has at least 13,000 CSA farms of which 12,549 are in the US according to the
United States Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...
in 2007. The rise of CSAs seems to be correlated with the increase in awareness of the
environmental movement in the United States
The organized environmental movement is represented by a wide range of non-governmental organizations or NGOs that seek to address environmental issues in the United States. They operate on local, national, and international scales. Environmen ...
. CSAs have even
become popular in urban environments such as the
New York City Coalition Against Hunger
The New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) is a nonprofit organization, which aims to “enact innovative solutions to help society move ‘beyond the soup kitchen’ to ensure economic and food self-sufficiency for all Americans”. NYC ...
's CSA program that helps serve
under-served communities. One of the largest subscription CSAs was Capay Inc. in
Capay Valley
Capay Valley is a mostly rural valley northwest of Sacramento in Yolo County, California, United States. It lies east of Blue Ridge and west of the Capay Hills.
Geography
Cache Creek flows through the valley.
California State Route 16 crosses ...
, California which in 2010 delivered boxes to 13,000 customers a week as well as selling at 15 farmers markets, operating a retail store, and delivering special orders to restaurants.
Urgenci, based in France, helps network together consumers and producers across Europe, the Mediterranean, and West Africa.
CSA was introduced to China following a series of food safety scandals in the late 2000s. It was estimated that there were more than 500 CSA farms in China by 2017. They have been a critical force in the development of the organic and
ecological farming in China. Chinese CSA farmers, researchers and civil society organizations gather annually at the national CSA symposium held since 2009.
Much of the growth in women labour participation in agriculture is outside the "male dominated field of conventional agriculture". In community supported agriculture women represent 40 percent of farm operators.
International
Even if the systems of community-supported agriculture vary in different countries, there are a number of umbrella-organizations connecting the farms. In the United States the governmental program SARE offered grants for research and education projects that advance sustainable agricultural practices like CSA.
In Germany and Austria the CSA groups founded the ''Bundesnetzwerk Solidarische Landwirtschaft'' (Federal Network of CSA-farms) in 2011.
Socio-economic model
CSAs create direct connections between producers and consumers through
alternative markets
Alternative or alternate may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki''
* ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film
* ''The Alternative ...
and the members and farmers share the risk of farming.
The goals of the first CSA model in the US were to have the producer and consumer to come into the market as equals and make an exchange with fair prices and fair wages.
The consumer pays for things such as transparency, environmental stewardship, producer relationships, etc. The farmers engaged in CSAs do so to fulfill goals other than income and are not compensated fairly in these exchanges.
This kind of market holds "
economic rent
In economics, economic rent is any payment (in the context of a market transaction) to the owner of a factor of production in excess of the cost needed to bring that factor into production. In classical economics, economic rent is any payment m ...
s" where the consumer surplus comes from the consumers' willingness to pay for something further than the product as well as for the products inputs themselves.
Although these markets still exist within a larger capitalist economy, they are able to exist because of the "economic rents" that are collected.
CSA system
CSAs generally focus on the production of high quality foods for a local community, often using
organic or
biodynamic farming methods, and a shared risk membership–marketing structure. This kind of farming operates with a much greater degree of involvement of consumers and other stakeholders than usual—resulting in a stronger consumer-producer relationship.
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. The system has many variations on how the farm budget is supported by the consumers and how the producers then deliver the foods. CSA theory purports that the more a farm embraces whole-farm, whole-budget support, the more it can focus on quality and reduce the risk of
food waste
Food loss and waste is food that is not eaten. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about o ...
.
Structure
Community-supported agriculture farms in the United States today share three common characteristics: an emphasis on community and/or local produce, share or subscriptions sold prior to season, and weekly deliveries to members/subscribers. Though CSA operation varies from farm to farm and has evolved over time, these three characteristics have remained constant.
[2009 Survey of Community Supported Agriculture Producers](_blank)
, University of Kentucky, accessed 05-15-2013. The functioning of a CSA also relies on four practical arrangements: for farmers to know the needs of a community, for consumers to have the opportunity to express to farmers what their needs and financial limitations are, for commitments between farmers and consumers to be consciously established, and for farmers needs to be recognized.
["Community Supported Agriculture"](_blank)
The Center for Social Research. Accessed 05-15-2013.
From this base, four main types of CSAs have been developed:
* Farmer managed: A farmer sets up and maintains a CSA, recruits subscribers, and controls management of the CSA.
* Shareholder/subscriber: Local residents set up a CSA and hire a farmer to grow crops, and shareholders/subscribers control most management.
* Farmer cooperative: Multiple farmers develop a CSA program.
* Farmer-shareholder cooperative: Farmers and local residents set up and cooperatively manage a CSA.
["Community Supported Agriculture"](_blank)
, Technotes: Office of Community Development, United States Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...
, accessed 05-15-2013.
In most original CSAs, a core group of members existed. This core group of members helped to make decisions about and run the CSA including marketing, distribution, administrative, and community organization functions. CSAs with a core group of members are most profitable and successful. However, in 1999, 72 percent of CSAs did not have a core group of members. CSAs with a core group of members operate more successfully as a farmer-shareholder cooperative and CSAs without a group of core members rely much more on subscriptions and run most prominently as shareholder/subscriber CSAs.
"CSA Across the Nation" Center for Integrated Agricultural Services. Accessed 05-22-2013
Ideology
Community-supported agriculture in America was influenced by the ideas of
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as ...
, an Austrian philosopher. He developed the concepts of
anthroposophy
Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Follower ...
and
biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts initially developed in 1924 by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). It was the first of the organic farming movements. It treats soil fertility ...
. The Temple-Wilton Community Farm used his ideas to develop three main goals of CSAs:
* New forms of property ownership: the idea that land should be held in common by a community through a legal trust, which leases the land to farmers
* New forms of cooperation: the idea that a network of human relationships should replace the traditional system of employers and employees
* New forms of economy: that the economy should not be based on increasing profit, but should be based on the actual needs of the people and land involved in an enterprise
As CSAs have increased in both number and size since they were first developed, they have also changed ideologically. While original CSAs and some more current CSAs are still philosophically oriented, most CSAs today are commercially oriented and community-supported agriculture is predominantly seen as a beneficial marketing strategy.
This has led to three ideologically based types of CSAs. The first type is instrumental, the CSA is considered a market in the traditional sense, instead of an alternative form of economy and relationship. The second type is functional; there is a relationship of solidarity between the farmer and the subscribers, but this extends mostly to social functions, not managerial or administrative functions. This is the most common type of CSA. The final type is collaborative; this is the closest to the original aims of CSAs where the relationship between the farmer and the subscribers is seen as a partnership.
["Devon Acres CSA: local struggles in a global food system"](_blank)
(2008), retrieved 04-11-2013.
Distribution and marketing methods
Shares of a CSA originally and predominantly consist of produce. In more recent years, shares have diversified and include non-produce products including eggs, meat, flowers, honey, dairy and soaps.
Share prices vary from CSA to CSA. Shares are sold as full shares, which feed 2 to 5 people, and half shares, which feed 1 to 3 people. Prices range from $200 to $500 per season. Full shares are sold at a median of $400 and half shares are sold at a median of $250.
Community Supported Agriculture Entering the 21st Century". Accessed 23 May 2013. Share prices are mostly determined by overhead costs of production, but are also determined by share prices of other CSAs, variable costs of production, market forces, and income level of the community.
Many CSAs have payment plans and low-income options.
Shares are distributed in several different ways. Shares are most often distributed weekly. Most CSAs allow share pick up at the farm. Shares are also distributed through regional dropoff, direct home or office dropoff, farmers' markets, and community center/church dropoff.
For example, the new "Farmie Markets" of upstate New York
take orders online and have a number of farmers who send that week's orders to a central point in a limited region, for distribution by the organizers.
CSAs market their farms and shares in different ways. CSAs employ different channels of marketing to diversify their sales efforts and increase subscriptions. CSAs use local farmers' markets, restaurants, on-farm retail, wholesale to natural food stores, and wholesale to local groceries in addition to their CSAs to market shares. One problem that CSAs encounter is over-production, so CSAs often sell their produce and products in ways other than shares. Often, CSA farms also sell their products at local farmers' markets. Excess products are sometimes given to food banks.
Challenges for farmers
Many CSA farmers can capitalize on a closer relationship between customers and their food, since some customers will pay more (an
economic rent
In economics, economic rent is any payment (in the context of a market transaction) to the owner of a factor of production in excess of the cost needed to bring that factor into production. In classical economics, economic rent is any payment m ...
if this puts the price above the cost of production) if they know where it is coming from, who is involved, and have special access to it.
However, some farmers participating in community-supported agriculture do not experience the economic benefits that they are perceived to obtain by participating in an alternative community-based arrangement. Galt's 2013 study of CSA farmers found that many farmers charged lower fees and prices for their goods than would provide them with financial security.
This study suggested that farmers may charge less than they need to earn fair wages due to undervaluing their expenses and to offset the high costs of CSA products and make it more affordable for customers; see
moral economy
Moral economy refers to economic activities viewed through a moral, not just a material, lens. The definition of moral economy is constantly revisited depending on its usage in differing social, economic, ecological, and geographic situations and ...
.
See also
*
Agrarian socialism
Agrarian socialism is a political ideology that promotes “the equal distribution of landed resources among collectivized peasant villages” This socialist system places agriculture at the center of the economy instead of the industrialization ...
*
Civic agriculture
Civic agriculture is the trend towards locally based agriculture and food production that is tightly linked to a community's social and economic development. It is also connected to the citizenship and environmentalism within a community. Civic a ...
*
Common land
Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
A person who has a ...
*
Communalism
Communalism may refer to:
* Communalism (Bookchin), a theory of government in which autonomous communities form confederations
* , a historical method that follows the development of communities
* Communalism (South Asia), violence across ethnic ...
*
Community land trust
A community land trust (CLT) is a nonprofit corporation that holds land on behalf of a place-based community, while serving as the long-term steward for affordable housing, community gardens, civic buildings, commercial spaces and other community ...
*
Community supported fishery
*
Community wealth building
Community wealth building is a term which covers a range of approaches which "...aim at improving the ability of communities and individuals to increase asset ownership, anchor jobs locally by broadening ownership over capital, help achieve key en ...
*
Development-supported agriculture
Development-supported agriculture is a nascent movement in real estate development that preserves and invests in agricultural land use. As farmland is lost due to the challenging economics of farming and the pressures of the real estate industry ...
*
Farmers' market
A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or o ...
*
Local food
Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket system.
Local food (or "locavore") movements aim to con ...
*
Sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture is farming in sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. It can be based on an understanding of ecosystem ser ...
*
Slow food
Slow Food is an organization that promotes local food and traditional cooking. It was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986 and has since spread worldwide. Promoted as an alternative to fast food, it strives to preserve traditional and re ...
*
Worker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...
*
WWOOF
World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF, ), or World Wide Organization of Organic Farms, is a loose network of national organizations that facilitate homestays on organic farms. , Australia with 2,600 hosts has the most host farms an ...
References
Further reading
Bryant, Greg. (1992). "Community Supported Agriculture," ''RAIN magazine'' 14(2), Winter/Spring.* Cone, C. A., & Myhre, A. (2000). Community-Supported Agriculture: A Sustainable Alternative to Industrial Agriculture? Human Organization 59(2), 187–197.
DeMuth, Suzanne. (1993). "Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): An Annotated Bibliography and Resource Guide", September.* Egan, Timothy. (2003). "Amid Dying Towns of Rural Plains, One Makes a Stand," ''New York Times'', December 1.
* Greenwood, Deborah, and Robin Leichenko. (2012). "Community-Supported Agriculture." In Danto, William, ed., ''Food and Famine in the 21st Century'', Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 86–94.
* Groh, Trauger, and Steven McFadden. (1990). ''Farms of Tomorrow: Community Supported Farms - Farm Supported Communities''. Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association
* Groh, Trauger, and Steven McFadden. (1998). ''Farms of Tomorrow Revisited: Community Supported Farms - Farm Supported Communities''. Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association.
What is a CSA, HarvestHand (2014). "Community Shared Agriculture," ''HarvestHand- What is a CSA''.* Kumar, S., Duell, J., Soergell, A., & Ali, R. (2011). Towards direct marketing of produce by farmers in India: Lessons from the United States of America. ''
Journal of International Development
The ''Journal of International Development'' is the official peer-reviewed academic journal of the Development Studies Association. It publishes research on international development issues with its main focus on the social sciences (economics, po ...
'', 23(4), 539–547. doi:10.1002/jid.1600
Lawson, Jered. (1993). "Cabbages and Compassion", ''RAIN magazine'' 14(3), Spring.* McFadden, Steven. (2011). ''The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century'', 2nd ed. NorLights Press.
* McFadden, Steven (2015). "Awakening Community Intelligence: CSA Farms as Community Cornerstones"
Soul*Sparks Books.
* ''Organic Gardening''. (1984). "Produce by Subscription," April.
* ''Organic Gardening''. (1986). "From Farms to Families," July.
* Speth, James Gustav. (2008). ''The bridge at the edge of the world''. New Haven: Yale University Press.
* ''Time''. (2003). “Fresh Off the Farm, A new breed of planters and eaters are joining forces to nurture the local-foods movement,”, November. 3.
VanderTuin, Jan. (1992). "Zürich Supported Agriculture", ''RAIN magazine'' 14(2), Winter/Spring.* Member Assembler (2015). "CSA Models - The Comprehensive guide to CSA Distribution Models and Fundamental Questions to ask when developing a CSA model".
External links
Find a local CSA (localharvest.org)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Community-Supported Agriculture
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