Research & reports

Magdalena Raftowicz, Mirosław Struś · · Poland

This theoretical study analyzes the potentials and barriers to the development of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Poland, drawing on existing research. It identifies key barriers to CSA development, including financial, legal, organizational, and social factors, which originate from both farmers and consumers. The ongoing land ownership concentration in Poland, fostering industrial agriculture, is contrary to sustainable development and EU agricultural policy, posing a significant barrier to CSA development, particularly for farmers.

Hannah Bücheler, Christine Bosch · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Germany

This paper explores the potential of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Germany, applying Erik Olin Wright’s concept of real utopia to assess if CSA challenges capitalist structures. Drawing on secondary literature, the study evaluates the desirability, feasibility, and achievability of CSA. The results suggest that CSA in Germany qualifies as a real utopia, but faces limitations to growth due to implementation constraints such as the need for additional market channels and access to land.

Magdalena Raftowicz, Mirosław Struś · · Europe

This chapter establishes a theoretical framework for examining the development of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA). It argues that CSA aligns closely with sustainable development theory and should be regarded as an alternative to industrial agriculture. The analysis concludes that CSA constitutes a form of social and constructive innovation consistent with the sustainable development paradigm. However, the low level of social capital represents a key barrier to implementing the classical CSA model in Central and Eastern Europe.

Anton Parisi, Felix Zoll, Faiza Darkhani · Agriculture and Human Values · Germany

Aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in German alternative food networks (AFNs) were explored through literature, interviews, and one stakeholder workshop. The inquiry found that while women are better represented in AFNs compared to conventional food systems, groups may be disproportionately white and higher-class. Flatter hierarchies and general openness to participation, though supposed prerequisites for food justice, do not guarantee that traditional gender roles, passive exclusion, or social barriers are averted.

Magdalena Raftowicz, Mirosław Struś · Sustainability · Poland

An empirical study in Poland, based on a critical literature review and a 2024 CAWI (computer-assisted web interview) survey of CSA producers, examined whether social capital theory explains food producers' engagement in Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) and whether this holds in practice. It found that social capital theory does explain the mechanisms underlying CSA engagement, with implications for local food system and small-farm policy, but that because of Poland's low level of social capital, the CSA model there remains only a niche complement to traditional agriculture, functioning primarily for a narrow group of socially and environmentally conscious consumers and small producer clusters.

Mattia Andreola · Discover Sustainability · Italy (Trento)

This study conducted three years of ethnographic research, including participant observation, in-depth interviews, and quantitative data analysis, on "NaturalMente in Trentino," a CSA initiative in Trento, Italy. The research revealed multiple lock-in points, indicating that CSA constraints stem from organizational inefficiencies, deeply rooted cultural and behavioral habits such as the use of private gardens or a preference for supermarket convenience, and rigid institutional frameworks like cooperative dominance in the local agri-food regime.

Anna Rosman, Joseph MacPherson, Marie Arndt, Katharina Helming · Agricultural Systems · Germany

This study investigated the impact of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) structures on farm resilience among CSA farmers in Germany. A mixed methodology was applied, combining a case study with one CSA farmer and a survey of CSA farmers across Germany. The findings indicated that CSA provides mechanisms for improving farm resilience through increased income security, risk protection, market independence, and satisfaction. CSA farmers demonstrated a high level of perceived resilience compared to non-CSA farmers.

Faiza Darkhani · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Germany (Berlin)

A qualitative content analysis of interviews with active female respondents in community-supported agriculture, food cooperatives, and self-harvest gardens in Berlin Brandenburg revealed challenges faced by women in alternative food networks. Interviewees expressed optimism but emphasized the need for increased governmental support and community engagement, and the data highlighted demands for gender equality improvements and support mechanisms.

Bernd Bonfert · · United Kingdom; Germany

This article investigates "network failure" and collaboration barriers within Community-supported agriculture (CSA) networks in the UK and Germany, using qualitative case studies. The study found that CSA networks function effectively at national and local levels but experience relative failure at the regional level. Regular barriers to collaboration arise from capacity limitations, member differences, and competition, which the networks are actively trying to address.

Caroline Verfuerth, Angelina Sanderson Bellamy, Barbora Adlerová, Amy Dutton · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · United Kingdom

Failures of the current food system are described as sitting at the core of multiple overlapping crises, shaping both consumption choices and food production, with low-income households disproportionately affected—their food security and access to healthy, sustainable food impacted as a result. Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is framed as a bottom-up response toward agri-food system transformation, an alternative food system built on locally sold, agroecologically grown food rooted in social values, and, alongside other food citizenship movements and alternative food networks (AFNs), driven by a vision of a democratic, socially and economically just, environmentally sustainable food system. Yet low-income households are underrepresented in the CSA community. This paper reports findings from a co-produced intervention between the research team, four CSA farms in Wales, United Kingdom, and two food aid partners, seeking ways to improve CSA membership accessibility for food-insecure households: 38 households received a weekly vegetable bag for two to four months, and 16 household members were interviewed at the project's start and at the end of the harvest season. Using a food well-being framework, the study found that CSA membership holistically improved food well-being by strengthening producer-consumer relationships, increasing availability of healthy foods, helping people care for their own and their families' well-being, and building place-based food capability and literacy—results the authors use to support calls for prioritizing food well-being interventions to benefit financially excluded, food-insecure households within localized AFNs.

Janina Wittenberg, Maria Gernert, Hamid El Bilali, Carola Strassner · Sustainability · Germany (Münster)

This paper explores the role of grassroots initiatives in the transition towards a sustainable urban food system in Münster, Germany, using questionnaires, interviews, and desk research. Results indicate that many initiatives in Münster focus on education and information, raising awareness, rather than offering material alternatives. Policy, education, networks, and communication were identified as key leverage points.

Tezcan Mert-Cakal, Mara Miele · Agriculture and Human Values · United Kingdom (Wales)

This article examines Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects in Wales as social innovation, exploring their emergence, innovative role, and transformative potential. Based on qualitative data from four different CSA case studies in Wales, the research showed that Welsh CSA cases play distinctive roles in the social economy, satisfying needs for ecologically sound and ethically produced food and empowering individuals at a micro level. However, the paper argues that for CSA initiatives to become 'workable utopias', they need to overcome barriers preventing replication, participation in macro-level policies, and scaling up, particularly concerning economic sustainability and resilience on a small scale.

Károly Kacz, Ádám Varga · Annals of the Polish Association of Agricultural and Agribusiness Economists · Europe

A survey in the Western Transdanubia region investigated major problems in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) within short food supply chains, involving farmer organizations and consumers. The analysis identified the insufficient market power of CSA organizations as the most influential factor. This finding suggests a significant constraint on the effectiveness of CSA models in the region.

Lena Partzsch · · Germany (Freiburg)

This chapter examines agency and accountability in food localization projects in Freiburg, Germany, using two case studies: Regionalwert AG and Luzernenhof. Regionalwert AG defines agency through the market, while Luzernenhof, a CSA, relies on trust and charity. It was shown that while food localization is often portrayed as "best practice," it also implies decisions about alternatives, raising questions of agency and accountability.

Oliver Moore, Olive McCarthy, Noreen Byrne, Michael Ward · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Europe

This paper examines one of the earliest and most prominent community supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives in Ireland, focusing on its organizational restructuring under productivity pressure. CSA is built on sharing risk and reward, and some uncertainty is treated as acceptable, but in this case the realized risk of insufficient produce, once pushed to its limits, became in fact unacceptable to members. The process by which this member-owned and member-operated CSA critically self-assessed and restructured after this shortfall is termed "reflexive resilience" — a description of an initiative that had to acknowledge a real produce shortfall and rebuild, not merely one that anticipated shocks in the abstract.

Michela Felicetti · Advanced engineering forum · Italy

A paper examining whether the food hub concept can be applied to the Piana di Sibari area of Calabria, Italy, designated a Quality Agrifood District (DAQ) under regional law. After identifying features of the food hub concept within the area's largest cooperative, the paper argues that this arrangement represents an opportunity for small farmers to access conventional food supply chains from which they would otherwise be excluded. It frames food hubs as a hybrid of alternative and conventional food networks and, notably, as a way to address the economic viability problem faced by local food initiatives such as community-supported agriculture (CSA)—that is, the paper's premise is that CSA-type local food initiatives struggle to be economically viable on their own.

Madlyne Samak · L Homme et la société · France

A long-term study in southeastern France examined the development of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as an alternative marketing system for fruits and vegetables. The study found that the non-market dimension of CSA appears to have disappeared over time, from its initial form to current basket systems. This change is attributed to the diversification of farmers' sociological profiles and the transformation of marketing conditions for organic local products.