How can community supported agriculture (CSA) contribute to a transformation of the agricultural and food sector?What are the possibilities and limits of this innovative economic concept as a catalyst for resilient and sustainable value creation areas?
Since the beginning of 2020, the potentials and limitations of this economic form are being investigated. The aim of the project is to analyze the following aspects and to promote them in practice, too:
1) the emergence and diffusion of CSA-based farms
2) their social and economic stabilization as well as
3) the resulting contribution to a resilient and comprehensive regional supply.
The project team works transdisciplinarily, i.e. in close exchange with practice partners, such as the German CSA Network "Netzwerk Solidarische Landwirtschaft". As a result, a practical guide for the stabilization of CSA-based farms is to be developed in addition to the scientific classification of this specific economic practice.
New economic forms and initiatives, such as urban gardening projects, commuty-supported agriculture or producer-consumer communitiesare characterized by a new understanding of the interaction between consumers and producers.
Nascent examines the potential for the transformation of the established food system that these initiatives generate. To achieve this, initiatives in five regions of Germany are being studied: Oldenburg and surrounding area, Berlin and surrounding area, Leipzig and Dresden, Munich and surrounding area and Freiburg im Breisgau and surrounding area. In addition, developments in other countries will also be examined through cooperation with partners abroad. The project team would like to develop a typology of the initiatives, crystallize their different motivations and interests. On the basis of these results, the scientists want to identify potentials of diffusion and provide target group-specific information in order to support a sustainable development of the food system.
As initiators of a sustainable and gradually cooperative economy, the role of transformative businesses and initiatives is to test alternative supply practices. In regional value creation areas they can, on the one hand, guarantee a stable supply of regional, fair and sustainable/ecologically produced products and food, and, on the other hand, offer places for participation, solidary economic activity and transformative learning. Transformative businesses enable sustainable practices in a variety of ways.
Within the framework of the research project, numerous qualitative and quantitative data have already been collected, which reveal the diverse potentials, but also the limits of transformative businesses and initiatives.
The nascent project page on the online platform ResearchGate offers the possibility to view and follow the work of the research project. In addition, it invites professional exchange.
A publication by Niko Paech, Marius Rommel, Irene Antoni-Komar and Dirk Posse about relisilience through community-based supply structures examining the example of CSA (community-supported agriculture).
Co-author Dr. Colin Sage reports about his recent publication „Food System Transformations: Social Movement, Local Economics, Collaborative Network“ in an interview at „Holy Tisch“.
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