In short, a CSA is a community-based organisation made up of growers and consumers. As the Soil Association defines it: CSA is a partnership between farmers and consumers where the responsibilities and rewards of farming are shared.
Different CSAs work slightly differently, depending on the governing principles behind a particular scheme and the needs of the communities they seek to serve. Basically, however, the idea behind CSA is for consumers to financially commit themselves to supporting the farm and providing a fair income to the growers. In return for this commitment, not only will consumers receive a weekly box of produce direct from the farm, they will also have opportunities to be more involved with the actual growing of that food and have direct access to the land from where that food comes. As the emphasis is always on the health, fertility, and sustainability of the land and the surrounding environment, they can also be guaranteed a high level of commitment to ecological stewardship in return for their continued support.
The main idea behind CSA can be traced back to Japan, where a women’s neighbourhood group initiated a direct growing and purchasing relationship between themselves and their local farms, due to concern about the methods used to produce their food. This arrangement, known as ‘teikei’ in Japanese, this translates as ‘putting the farmers’ face on food’. Since the 1960’s, CSA has evolved in several countries throughout Europe as a direct reaction against the rapid industrialisation of food production, which left consumers feeling increasingly detached from where their food was coming from.
The Soil Association has identified a minimum of 100 CSA initiatives within the UK. This number is on the increase.
Benefits to the consumers include:
Benefits to the grower include:
Other benefits include:
Different models of CSA. There are 4 general ways that a CSA organisation can work including by:
Subscription: generally organised by the farmer, with a low level of consumer involvement in the day to day business
Shareholder: consumers work closely with the farmer who produces varieties of food they want to eat. This model involves a much higher level of consumer involvement
Farmer co-operative: farmer-driven CSA with multiple farms co-operating to supply consumers with greater variety of produce. This allows individual farms to specialise in most appropriate farming for that holding but requires a more complex organisational structure
Farmer-consumer co-operative: similar to previous model, but with much more consumer commitment. Consumers and farmers may co-own land and other resources and work together to produce and distribute food
All information on this page was gathered from a number of resources, including:
To find out where your nearest CSA is in the UK, go to the CSA Network’s ‘Find-a-CSA’ page.
Last updated 3rd April 2020