Research & reports

Ana Poças Ribeiro, Robert Harmsen, Giuseppe Feola, Jesús Rosales Carreón, Ernst Worrell · Sociologia Ruralis · Europe

A study of 17 alternative food networks (AFNs) across Poland, Portugal, and the Netherlands, drawn from interviews with AFN organizers, examined the factors that constrain and facilitate the emergence and consolidation of different AFN types. Using a multi-actor perspective framework, the researchers categorized six AFN types: consumer-led, producer-led, third-sector led, community supported agriculture, public-led, and business platforms. Key challenges and facilitating conditions varied by AFN type and country; unlike in the Netherlands, low social capital was commonly cited as a challenge in Portugal and Poland. AFN organizers exercised innovative power in creating new forms of food provision, but the study concludes that a wide scope of actions by both governmental and non-governmental actors is needed to support the emergence of more AFNs.

N. R. Baker, Simon Popay, James Bennett, Moya Kneafsey · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United Kingdom

This paper introduced "net yield efficiency" (NYE) to compare food system performance by accounting for yields, loss, and waste. A UK case study compared fresh vegetable and salad waste between a community supported agriculture (CSA) scheme and the supermarket system. The study found that the CSA system wasted only 6.71% by weight across all stages, dramatically outperforming the supermarket system which wasted 40.7–47.7%. These findings highlight significant differences between the systems and suggest NYE offers a more accurate measure of food system performance.

David Watson · Organization · United Kingdom

This article explores the experience and organization of labor within a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme in the United Kingdom, drawing on Marx’s concept of alienation. It presents a case study of how labor in a CSA scheme counteracts experiences of alienation created by capitalism and considers how this might inform the reorganization of labor in the food system more generally.

Gerlinde Behrendt, Sarah Peter, Simone Sterly, Anna Maria Häring · Working paper/Working paper CIRIEC ... · Germany

Empirical evidence on community financing in the German organic food sector shows that a still-niche but growing number of firms use citizen-sourced funding to substitute or complement bank credit. The models are classified into four types — pure financing instruments (crowdfunding, profit participation rights, direct loans), legal-form-based models (cooperatives, corporations), intermediary-pooled financing (citizen shareholder corporations, land purchase cooperatives), and others such as community supported agriculture, leasing and sponsorship — and their role is discussed in easing access to capital for farms facing rising land prices and limited access to traditional bank credit.

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

A study analyzed the distribution of local products through short food supply chains (SFSCs) in Hungary, focusing on farmer markets and Community Supported Agriculture systems, using data from multiple databases. Both traditional and neo-traditional SFSC forms were found to be viable in Hungary, but as in other Central and Eastern European countries, traditional SFSC types—particularly local farmer markets—remain dominant in numbers; the study concludes that forming and supporting neo-traditional organizations is useful for exploiting the potential of short supply chains.

V. Yarovyi, О. В. Фраєр · Ukrainian society · Europe

This paper examines how Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has formed, and what models and forms it has taken, in various countries, synthesizing this foreign experience from the perspective of implementing CSA in Ukraine. It discusses the preconditions for CSA's development, the incentives that lead producers and consumers to join CSA, and the conditions needed for its social and economic efficiency.

Laura M. Van Oers, Wouter Boon, Ellen H.M. Moors · Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions · Netherlands

This study investigated how grassroots organizations, specifically Dutch Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), construct legitimacy for their survival. It found that CSAs predominantly work to garner legitimacy from their members, and that survival seems associated with social capital building. A moralization of food provision was observed, which explains why new and possibly inconvenient terms of exchange still amass legitimacy. As external audiences remain at a distance, they often misunderstand CSA, its deliverables, and impacts on social welfare.

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.

Jonathan Beacham · Organization · United Kingdom

This ethnographic study explored three community supported agriculture schemes in the north-west of England to understand how Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) can foster a more-than-human ethic of care for the Anthropocene. Drawing on the diverse economies framework and feminist ethics of care literature, the study argues that AFNs offer open-ended organizational forms that can play a central role in this endeavor.

Laura Carlsona, Vera Bitsch, Carlsona, Laura, Bitsch, Vera · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Germany

This study used a grounded theory approach to examine the importance of solidarity in four alternative food network (AFN) projects in former East Germany, including two community supported agriculture projects, one cooperative grocery, and one urban agriculture project. Data were collected through document analysis and participant observation. Results indicate that although solidarity is explicitly mentioned by actors and in official documents, its conception and implementation vary across initiatives, influenced by individuals, local conditions, and external institutions.

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.

Elisabeth Kosnik · Economic Anthropology · Europe

This article investigates self-provisioning practices and diverse economies, drawing on ethnographic research of lifestyle subsistence farmers in central Europe and New Zealand. It uses Alvin Toffler's "prosumer" concept to explore the meaning of production for consumption in relation to discourses on ethical consumption, social distinction, and the "citizen-consumer" within a postgrowth society.

Birgit Peuker · · Germany

This chapter discusses whether community supported agriculture (CSA) constitutes a real alternative to the conventional food system. From the perspective of social movement research, CSA is viewed not as a niche that will replace the agri-food system in the future, but rather as a space for learning and expressing sustainability. The analysis is based on experiences with CSA in Germany and includes comparisons with developments in other European countries.

P Cacciari · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Italy

This article argues that diverse economic forms exist beyond the market economy, including natural, gift, domestic, informal, and solidarity economies. Solidarity economy, based on ethical principles like sustainability, mutuality, cooperation, and democracy, is presented as a transformative, post-capitalist alternative applicable to all sectors of production, distribution, and exchange. Case studies include buildings as common goods in Naples and Arvaia, a community-supported agriculture initiative in Bologna.

Birgit Blättel‐Mink, Moritz Boddenberg, Lenard Gunkel, Sarah Schmitz, Franziska Vaessen · International Journal of Consumer Studies · Germany

This study analyzed Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Germany, applying the concept of social innovation. It conducted a standardized survey, semi-structured interviews, and discourse analysis, identifying the crisis discourses to which CSA reacts and the motivations of its members. While CSA exhibits innovative facets such as solidarity, de-commodification, and prosuming, it is not a homogeneous phenomenon, differentiating into sociopolitical, spiritual-communal, and pragmatic-economic types that vary in their expression of social innovation and attitudes towards crises.

Ana María Rivero Santos · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · Spain (Asturias)

This research aims to identify the contributions of social currencies to creating short food supply chains. A case study of RASTRU's consumption groups and community supported agriculture (CSA) in Asturias, northwest Spain, and its social currency "Copin," was presented. Through surveys and participant observation, it was evidenced how social currencies generate proximity and trust-based relations between consumers and producers, based on inclusion and fair access to food for people.

Marta Sylla, Julia Olszewska, Małgorzata Świąder · Journal of Agribusiness and Rural Development · Poland

This article analyzes the current state of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Poland, focusing on farm characteristics, spatial distribution of producers and consumers, and operational principles of CSA groups. Based on survey data from telephone interviews, the analysis indicates a rapid increase in CSA groups, which primarily operate in large cities. A common operational principle is that consumers prepay for organic, high-quality produce at the beginning of the growing season.

Brian J. Shaw · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Europe

An entry on ØsterGRO, a rooftop farm located in the center of Copenhagen that operates as a form of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

Rosie Cox, Moya Kneafsey, Lewis Holloway, Elizabeth Dowler, Laura Venn · · United Kingdom

This chapter introduces the concept of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and positions it within the literature on local food, moral economies, and ethics of care. Using the case of EarthShare, the longest-running CSA in Britain, founded in Forres, Scotland in 1994, it argues that by exposing differences in members' priorities, local food systems can be seen as sites of political potential despite not being perfect or free from conflict. CSAs are presented as offering opportunities to strengthen place-based community relationships between growers and eaters, characterized as a form of caring practice in food production and consumption.

Andrew E. G. Jonas · · United Kingdom

This chapter explores the notion of "the alternative" as relatively unexamined. Empirical work over three years involved six food businesses and initiatives facilitating direct contact between producers and consumers. Earth Share Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Nairn, North East Scotland, provides vegetables to approximately 200 households weekly. The chapter suggests that diversity within the "alternative" food sector is not necessarily problematic, and consumers' contingent, accidental, and partial commitment has not undermined the success of these schemes.

Alexandra Doernberg, Ingo Zasada, Katarzyna Bruszewska, Björn Skoczowski, Annette Piorr · Sustainability · Germany

A 2016 study applies a food systems approach to examine the potential and limits of regional organic food supply in the Berlin Metropolitan Region (BMR), Germany. Using an analytical framework built from the literature and qualitative interviews plus a stakeholder workshop on two alternative food network types — organic community supported agriculture (CSA) and organic retail trade — it finds that demand for regional organic food exceeds regional supply, while identifying obstacles including limited access to land, rising rental prices, insufficient processing capacity, and an unsupportive political environment for organic farming.

Charlotte Flink, Jenny Persson · · Europe

This thesis examines whether Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), as an alternative food production model, can promote sustainable urban and rural development in Sweden, using a Triple Bottom Line (economic, environmental, social) framework across two parts: a literature review and a quantitative participant survey at the CSA farm Stackvallen. The literature review indicated CSA operations can contribute to sustainable societal development through economic stimulus and environmentally sound food supply, while the participant survey found respondents rated the social aspects low and valued the health and environmental aspects more highly.

Dražen Šimleša, Jelena Puđak, Filip Majetić, Anita Bušljeta Tonković · · Europe

This paper sets out a qualitative case-study framework for examining the solidarity economy in Split, Croatia's second-largest city, focused on the association MoST (The Bridge), one of Croatia's designated "Centres of Knowledge" for social development, specializing in social inclusion work with homeless people and at-risk youth. It poses as its research questions the inner potentials, strengths, obstacles, and disadvantages for solidarity economy development in Split at the point when MoST and other local actors were just beginning to promote a "Solidarity City Split" concept; the text as given does not report study findings.

Sandrine Costa, Lydia Zepeda, Lucie Sirieix · International Journal of Consumer Studies · France

A qualitative study in Montpellier, France, with 20 participants across four group interviews, investigated the social value of organic food. The study found that organic food holds social value for participants, which varies depending on the purchase venue (community-supported agriculture, market, or supermarket) and whether consumers or producers demonstrate additional green behaviors. The findings suggest the utility of a quantitative study for a larger sample.

Jean Lagane · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · France

This paper examines the challenges of food provisioning in Marseille due to global food networks and environmental issues like global warming and metropolization. A three-year ethnographic study of the "Marche du Cours Julien" in Marseille explored how citizens revived local farmers' markets and promoted bottom-up ecologization. The study also analyzed the links between the Cours Julien farmers' market, which hosts a French Community-supported agriculture (CSA), and the development of Alternative Food Networks and Short Food Supply Chains.