Research & reports

Victoria Derr · Children Youth and Environments · Global

This book review examines Sandra Steingraber's "Raising Elijah," which addresses parental concerns about environmental crises and children's protection. The book details environmental hazards and advocates for engagement in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms. It criticizes the inadequacy of policies that force parents to act as "their own regulatory agencies" and suggests that collaborative, multi-agency approaches are necessary for effective environmental protection, beyond individual actions like buying local and organic.

John M. Polimeni, Raluca Iorgulescu Polimeni, Richard L. Shirey, Christina L. Trees, W. Scott Trees · Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER) · United States

This paper develops a theory of demand for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership, using survey and anecdotal data from members of the Roxbury Biodynamic Farm, the second largest CSA in the United States. The discussion considers evidence of a direct relationship between production method and demand. It also hypothesizes that dynamic demand, influenced by participation over time, is a necessary but insufficient condition for CSA sustainability.

Kathleen Lynn Wensuc · Digital Commons - DU (University of Denver) · United States (Colorado)

This study investigates consumer understanding of food labeling and the marketability of authentically healthy, organic foods from independent farms. Conducted in Boulder, Colorado, it explores potential confusion between "organic" and "natural" products and reasons for participation in community supported agriculture programs. Findings suggest that a misperception between the terms "organic" and "natural" may not exist, but distinguishing them remains important.

石嫣, 程存旺, 雷鹏, 朱艺, 贾阳, 温铁军 · 贵州社会科学 · China

International experience indicates that the development of ecological urban agriculture is inseparable from the rise of a middle-income group, characterized by taking responsibility for social stability, holding non-extreme policy positions, and — in consumption — emphasizing environmental protection and advocating green consumption. The paper argues that urban agriculture must foreground an ecological theme to attract this middle-income consumer group, gain support from a consumer base of sufficient scale, and allow the multifunctionality of ecological urban agriculture to be realized and exercised.

Joshua M. Davis · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · United States

This paper evaluates the sustainability of the Market Basket (MB), a modified Community Supported Agriculture program run by Post Oil Solutions in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, that provided local, fresh vegetables to low-income consumers at wholesale prices across two locations over two years, drawing on the author's experience as market coordinator, focus groups, interviews, and secondary data. Over 60 people participated in the MB during that period, and the paper argues the MB was an effective approach for increasing produce consumption, but issues affecting its sustainability remained unresolved — most notably funding to support a coordinator and increasing participation among generationally low-income consumers — with steps to address both currently underway.

شعبانعلی فمی شعبانعلی فمی, قاسمی قاسمی, سرور امینی سرور امینی, سعادتزاده سعادتزاده · پژوهش های اقتصاد و توسعه کشاورزی · Asia

A correlational survey of farmers' attitudes toward participating in community-supported agriculture (CSA) in the Markazi district of Karaj, Iran. Out of a population of 1,598 farmers, a sample of 130 was drawn by simple random sampling (initially 117 via Cochran's formula, later expanded), using a questionnaire validated by expert judgment and showing Cronbach's alpha reliability of 0.7–0.9. Farmers' main motivation for CSA participation was securing financial resources and marketing their produce. Interest in receiving citizens' financial support correlated significantly and positively with annual income, family labor use, and number of citizen visits to farms (p<0.01), and with dependency on the residential area and education level (p<0.05). A Kruskal-Wallis test found significant differences among farmers from different residential areas in interest in citizen financial support, willingness to cooperate with citizens across income levels, satisfaction with farming income, and length of cultivation (p<0.05).

Ben Amsden, Jesse McEntee · Leisure/Loisir · Global

This paper introduces "Agrileisure," a conceptual framework addressing both supply and demand sides of agriculture engaged for leisure and recreation purposes — such as farm-based agritourism, hobby farming, farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture — arguing that existing leisure-studies scholarship on agriculture has largely stopped at farm tourism. The framework draws on theoretical roots in leisure studies, ecology, sociology, psychology, social justice and geography.

Patricia M. Clay, Julia Olson · Anthropology News · Global

The available record for this Anthropology News piece consists only of a keyword list — sustainability, biological anthropology, fisheries management, food system, sustainable fishery, Community Supported Agriculture, food and nutrition, ecology and environment — with no abstract text describing a study, method or finding.

K. Brandon Lang · Culture & Agriculture · United States

This paper investigates the evolution of "From the Ground Up," a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program in Maryland, and the reasons behind its changes. Based on survey and interview data, the study explores how this CSA, which connects producers and consumers through seasonal fees and weekly produce shares, has developed over time.

Sumiko Abe · Journal for the Integrated Study of Dietary Habits · Global

This report examines the weakening relationship between agriculture and food, leading to market failures, reduced competitiveness, and information deficiencies, with processed foods and supermarket purchases dominating. It focuses on direct sales and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as methods to realize "eating habits of volitional selection." These regional markets foster trust and traceability, contributing to food safety, and the study introduces examples from 12,000 direct sales stores, female farmer enterprises, and the Pal System Consumers Cooperative Union.

Sarah Rabkin · · United States

Amy Courtney, founder of Freewheelin’ Farm, a community supported agriculture (CSA) program, delivers shares by bicycle-drawn trailer. Courtney, a 1997 graduate of UCSC’s Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture, started the farm in 2002 with minimal motorized vehicles, utilizing used equipment and recycled materials. She and her partners continue to haul all CSA shares six miles into Santa Cruz by bicycle. Courtney's work is driven by a commitment to social justice, community health, and cultural vitality. The farm collaborates with "Food, What?!"—a youth empowerment program, and hosts cultural and educational initiatives.

Wuyang Hu, Marvin T. Batte, Timothy A. Woods, Stanley C. Ernst, Hu, Wuyang, Batte, Marvin T., Woods, Timothy A., Ernst, Stanley C. · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · United States

This study used survey data from two US states to answer two questions: what is the maximum distance food can travel and still be considered "local" by consumers, and is "local" equally important across food categories. The research found that consumers' accepted food travel distance may be much shorter than generally believed. Additionally, there is significant variation in the importance consumers attach to "being local" for different food categories, and these differences are related to consumer characteristics.

Noah Zerbe · · Global

Failures in the mainstream industrialized food system have increased interest in alternative food systems. These alternatives include urban agriculture, community supported farms, school and community gardens, and fair trade. Despite their diversity, these emergent systems share a common vision for food provision based on social and environmental justice.

Sarah Rabkin · · United States (California)

Juan Pablo Perez founded J&P Organics, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program in California, in 2006, which now serves approximately 300 subscribers. The enterprise offers flexible subscription options, including home delivery and varied order frequencies, and sells produce to restaurants and farmers' markets. Perez's success is attributed to his entrepreneurial skills and mentorship from the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA).

Shante Morgan · · United States (California)

This record is an archive of blog articles from August 2010 for @CSUN, Volume XV, No. 1. Topics include a dedication ceremony, the online debut of a newspaper, campus events, faculty and staff features, and an article on Community Supported Agriculture providing a healthy alternative for CSUN.

Sarah Rabkin · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States (California)

This article profiles Andy Griffin, who operates Mariquita Farm on twenty-five acres in Watsonville and Hollister, California. Griffin, with roots in California's 1970s organic-farming renaissance, offers insights gleaned from extensive experience in the farming and marketing of organic produce. He was interviewed by Sarah Rabkin on November 6th and December 16th, 2008, sharing trenchant insights into the evolving economics of organic production, distribution, and marketing on both small and large scales.

William H. Friedland · Rural Sociology · Global

This article explores strengthening alternative agrifood movements by mobilizing academic researchers. It proposes a new organization, "Alternative Agrifood Researchers without Borders," to utilize researchers' skills and structural position. The goal is to enhance movements, reduce inequalities, and improve academic research quality by paralleling existing state and market structures while focusing on progressive objectives.

Denise · TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology · Global

This course explores the sociological aspects of food, examining the cultural and social values that organize the biological need to eat. It investigates the social relations involved in food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption, including topics like food and identity, the agri-food system, food-related social movements, and the unequal distribution of food. The course considers the consequences of food on social relationships and population health.

Jennifer Sumner, Heather Mair, Erin Nelson · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · Canada (Ontario)

This paper presents a case study of Fourfold Farm CSA, an urban agriculture exemplar in south-western Ontario, Canada. Analysis of in-depth interviews with CSA members and co-founders revealed that the farm serves as more than just a source of organic food. It links urban food consumers with producers through cultural activities, emphasizing civic engagement and community.

C. Clare Hinrichs · · United States (Pennsylvania)

This paper argues for sociologists' engagement with sustainable food systems, illustrating the urgency of agricultural and food issues through sketches. One sketch highlights the 2009 tomato blight in the Northeast, which devastated crops from commercial to home gardens. This blight was traced to tomato starts from large nurseries supplying major retailers, demonstrating how local food can be linked to large-scale industrialized agriculture.

Sarah Rabkin · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States (California)

This interview, conducted by Sarah Rabkin at Jim Nelson's home at Camp Joy Gardens in Boulder Creek, California, on August 20 and October 23, 2008, features Nelson discussing the founding and early days of the UCSC Garden, his experiences with Alan Chadwick, the creation and evolution of Camp Joy, and his philosophy as a farmer-educator. Camp Joy Gardens is a 4.5-acre farm in Santa Cruz County that organically cultivates crops using biodynamic principles and supplies produce to twenty-five local families through a community-supported agriculture program.

Irene H. Reti · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States

María Inés Catalán was born in Santa Teresa, Guerrero, Mexico, in 1962, immigrated to the United States in 1986, and picked broccoli and carrots in California's Salinas Valley; her father was also a migrant farm worker, while her grandfather had farmed his own land in Mexico. In 1994 she entered an organic farming training program at the Rural Development Center in Salinas (an earlier incarnation of ALBA, the Agriculture & Land-Based Training Association), after which she became the first Latina migrant farm worker to own and operate a certified organic farm in California and the first Latina in the country to found a farm distributing produce through a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. Since 2001, Catalán and her family have run Catalán Family Farms on fifteen rented acres in Hollister, California, certified organic by CCOF in 2005, growing kale, chard, strawberries, tomatoes, corn, onions, pumpkins, chiles, and carrots for sale through the Laughing Onion CSA and farmers' markets in the Salinas, Monterey Bay, and San Francisco Bay areas, including the Ferry Plaza Market and the Berkeley Farmers' Market. She is also an activist for food security among low-income communities, especially Latinos, having worked with the group P.O.D.E.R. in San Francisco's Mission district to deliver CSA shares, collaborated with schools, churches, and the Homeless Garden Project's CSA in Santa Cruz to deliver boxes to home-bound residents, provided CSA information in Spanish, and set up a farm stand outside the Monterey County government office on WIC pickup days. She also founded the nonprofit Pequeños Agricultores en California (PAC) to help immigrant farmers obtain organic certification and apply for grants and loans.

Sarah Rabkin · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States (California)

An oral-history interview record with Amy Courtney, founder of the Freewheelin' Farm CSA in Santa Cruz County, California, USA, conducted by Sarah Rabkin on January 16, 2009. Courtney, a 1997 graduate of UC Santa Cruz's Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture, started the farm in 2002 using almost no motorized vehicles, incorporating used equipment and recycled materials; CSA shares are still delivered by bicycle-drawn trailer six miles into Santa Cruz, with farming partners Kirstin Yogg and Darryl Wong. Courtney's background includes work with school gardens, the Santa Cruz Homeless Garden Project, the United Farm Workers, the AFL-CIO, and an agricultural extension program in Cuba. The farm collaborates with "Food, What?!," a youth empowerment program based at UCSC's Life Lab Garden Classroom, and hosts a community art show, yoga classes and cooking instruction with Zen priest Edward Espe Brown. At the time of the interview, Courtney and her partners had just signed a lease for an additional parcel, multiplying the farm's acreage eightfold.

QU Xue-shu · Anhui nongye kexue · China

A Chinese paper frames Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a risk- and benefit-sharing arrangement between farms and their supporting communities, as an outgrowth of food-security concerns and land interest during urbanization, and explores its potential extension into tourism. Analyzing the feasibility and conditions for combining CSA with tourism, the paper proposes a new tourism form under the CSA model, termed 'TCSA tourism.'

Robert Rogerson, Sue Sadler · Strathprints: The University of Strathclyde institutional repository (University of Strathclyde) · United Kingdom

This case study, prepared by BRASS (Centre for Business Relationships Accountability, Sustainability & Society), is part of an HCA/ESRC funded research project. The project investigated skills and knowledge applied in sustainability initiatives related to housing, land, food, and transport.