Community Supported Agriculture: A Food System and Its Potential for Transformational Change to Sustainability
Currently, the agricultural sector is facing serious challenges. Climate change, rising populations, and changing consumer expectations are putting the industry under pressure and leading to consumer dissatisfaction. Conventional agriculture, the predominant form, is increasingly criticized for its...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Philipps-Universität Marburg
2024
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| Zusammenfassung: | Currently, the agricultural sector is facing serious challenges. Climate change, rising populations, and changing consumer expectations are putting the industry under pressure and leading to consumer dissatisfaction. Conventional agriculture, the predominant form, is increasingly criticized for its negative ecological, economic, and social impacts. In response, various alternative food systems have developed over the years, attempting to meet today's expectations and offer a sustainable alternative. One such form is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).
Community Supported Agriculture is an organizational form in which a closed circle of consumers is tied to a farm. Disconnected from the open market, consumers and producers share the economic risk through membership contracts, forming a regional food system. In CSA, participation, social interaction, education, seasonality, and transparency are paramount. Although the concept has existed in Germany for some time, significant growth and increased awareness of the scene have only been observed since around 2011. Since then, the number of farms has been growing exponentially, and new farms are regularly being established nationwide.
Community Supported Agriculture promises to be a sustainable concept that aims to capture part of the market and create regional economic systems. However, the question remains as to how sustainable this concept actually is and to what extent it can bring about changes in the agricultural sector.
Using the concept of leverage points, points within a system can be identified where changes can be initiated to make the system more sustainable. Certain areas within a system hold particularly high potential and can bring about a transformation towards sustainability through targeted changes at leverage points. These areas are referred to as re-connect, re-think, and re-structure. They deal with the human connection to nature, the significance and decay of institutions, and the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge.
This dissertation examines the Community Supported Agriculture system concerning its potential to promote sustainability transformations. The leverage points concept is applied to analyze which points in the CSA system are related to the areas of re-connect, re-think, and re-structure, and further research questions present in the articles are explored. Additionally, a summarizing conclusion of all articles observes whether there are overlaps within the leverage points and how they differ from conventional agriculture. Finally, it assesses whether the system has transformative potential and to what extent this potential is being utilized. The study was conducted in the region of Hesse, where qualitative, guided interviews were conducted with 22 farms. The collected information was processed, analyzed, and integrated into three articles included in the dissertation. Each of these articles addresses one of the three areas with great potential for promoting sustainability transformations.
The first article aims to identify profound levers related to the deep area of re-think. The way knowledge is generated, used, and disseminated in a system significantly shapes its development and can lead to its transformation. To find the crucial points where a rethinking occurs, the entire CSA system is analyzed for its knowledge dynamics. Structures such as participation days, cultivation planning, social events, working groups, and distribution methods are closely examined.
The second article deals with the area of re-connect. Humanity is increasingly distancing itself from nature, leading to unsustainable behavior. It is crucial to take measures to restore this connection. This article examines how people can build a new bond with nature through Community Supported Agriculture. It analyzes existing structures on farms that enable material, experiential, cognitive, emotional, and philosophical connections to nature.
The third article focuses on analyzing the area of re-structure. The goal is to find institutional levers in the CSA system that can bring about transformative changes. The value chain of a farm in Frankfurt am Main is analyzed in detail to identify structural levers at every step. Unlike the other articles that summarize the results of all interviewed farms in Hesse, this article focuses on a single farm and its network of stakeholders. |
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| DOI: | 10.17192/z2024.0223 |