Why Bother Consumers Varying Commitment to Community Supported Agriculture

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Why Bother? Consumers Varying Commitment to
Community Supported Agriculture

• NEMAC - Chocolate Friday Presentation
• February 3, 2006
• Daniel E. OLeary

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Overview

• What is CSA?
• Whos involved?
• Background research for this study
• Proposed study
• Research Methods
• Environmental modeling

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Community Supported Agriculture

• Is the mutually beneficial arrangement whereby
  farmers and consumers cooperate so food grown on
  small farms is distributed efficiently for local
  consumption.
• The consumers commit to financially support the
  farm and share in the risks and rewards of
  small-scale organic agriculture.
• Before the growing season begins, the consumer
  buys a CSA "share" in return for a box of fresh,
  organically grown produce each week during the
  season.

Source http//www.csacny.com/index.html
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Community Supported Agriculture

• The farmer receives money before the start of the
  season when it is most needed to buy seed and
  supplies, and the consumer gets an assortment of
  fresh produce grown using environmentally
  responsible methods.
• Since 1981, more than 620,000 productive farms
  have disappeared in the U.S., either bought by
  larger farms or "developed". In a conventional
  market system, only 25 cents of every food dollar
  goes to the farmer, but with a CSA, about 95
  cents of the dollar goes to the farmer.
• Squash example

Source http//www.csacny.com/index.html
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From field to table
Farmer
Consumer
Source Dobbs, T.L., R.C. Shane and D.M. Feuz.
Lessons learned from the Upper Midwest Organic
Marketing Project. Summer 2000, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp
120-9. American journal of alternative
agriculture.
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Whos involved? Farmers

• 40 of primary CSA farm operators are women
• CSA farmers are younger than conventional farmers
  (10 years on average) and most are relatively new
  to farming (lt10 years)
• 77 with a college degree, 25 with a Masters
  degree or higher
• 97 White/Non-Hispanic

Lass, Daniel , G.W. Stevenson, John Hendrickson
and Kathy Ruhf. 2003. "CSA Across the Nation
Findings from the 1999 CSA Survey." Pp. 19.
Madison Center for Integrated Agricultural
Systems (CIAS), College of Agricultural and Life
Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Background Research

• Classic Anthropological field research
• Personal Interest (El Salvador, Thailand,
  Vietnam, New York)

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Why Bother? Proposed Study

• This primary research will engage various levels
  of committed consumers of a CSA program in order
  to more clearly understand their reasons for
  participating in this fringe food movement in the
  U.S.
• It is the goal of this dissertation research to
  more fully understand varying consumer
  commitments to a CSA program, and to present
  potential new approaches to maintaining and
  growing what I will argue is a social
  agri-cultural1 movement.
• 1. My goal here in fragmenting the word is to
  emphasize the value in exploring the social and
  cultural rationale for CSA participation by
  consumers in a much more direct fashion

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The problem, one possibility

• The social and cultural significance of food
  production and consumption is increasingly lost
  in industrialized farming (Vandana Shiva Stolen
  Harvest).
• CSA programs may in fact contribute to a sense of
  what Lyson asserts is a, rebirth of locally
  based agriculture and food production civic
  agriculture, because these activities are tightly
  linked to a communitys social and economic
  development (Lyson, Civic Agriculture).

Farmer
Consumer
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Research Methods

• Personal Interviews of 5 consumer sub-groups
  (non, 1 year and out, new, 2nd year and
  long-term)
• Participant observation at food drop-off sites
• Fieldnotes
• Content analysis of interview transcripts using
  Nvivo qualitative analysis software

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Environmental Modeling

• One tangible way to address increasing
  environmental degradation

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Environmental Modeling

• Reconnect with other human beings in a positive
  environment

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Environmental Modeling

• Enjoy the process - simply taking the time to
  slow down and to enjoy life with family and
  friends and food (www.slowfoodusa.org).

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Local CSA Resources
www.asapconnections.org http//www.buyappalachian.
org/csa.php