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 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 through local markets.
Community-supported agriculture can be considered as a practice of Commoning. It is an example of community-led management of the production and distribution of goods and services. The organization of food provisioning through commoning is complementary to the horizontal axis of market mediated food provisioning and the verticality of the state distribution and regulation on food. As a model where market agents do not interact solely as competitors but as “members of a community collaborating in pursuing a collective action for the commonwealth” it is also recognized and supported by public policies in some countries. Such frameworks of collaboration between public administration and the cooperative sector are known as Public-Commons-Partnerships (PCP) and have also been established in relation to food. As a prefigurative practice that decommodifies food and “strengthens the imaginary of community as a source of reward and space of emancipation“ CSA has been acknowledged as an important step-stone in a sustainability transition in agri-food systems.
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, Canada and the UK but a variety of similar production and economic sub-systems are in use worldwide and in Austria and Germany as Solidarische Landwirtschaft (lit. 'solidarity agriculture', abbreviated to Solawi).
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