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The what-how-why of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): Difference between revisions
The what-how-why of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) (view source)
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== The principles of the cooperative system == | == The principles of the cooperative system == | ||
Though most cooperatives adapt their organisational structures to meet their own specific needs, the coop system is fundamentally based on 7 founding notions: the Rochdale Principles. Originally wrote in England in 1844 by the 28 founders of an early worker co-operative food store<ref>This store gave the members of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers access to goods they would otherwise not have access to, now being left unemployed as a result of the mechanisation of work</ref>, this set of principles paved the way to our contemporary cooperative movement. (click on reference for more detailed | Though most cooperatives adapt their organisational structures to meet their own specific needs, the coop system is fundamentally based on 7 founding notions: the Rochdale Principles. Originally wrote in England in 1844 by the 28 founders of an early worker co-operative food store<ref>This store gave the members of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers access to goods they would otherwise not have access to, now being left unemployed as a result of the mechanisation of work</ref>, this set of principles paved the way to our contemporary cooperative movement. (click on each reference tag for more detailed principles) | ||
<b><u>Up to date version:</b></u> | <b><u>Up to date version:</b></u> | ||
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These two programs often work in concert in rural areas, and are associated with each other by consumers. | These two programs often work in concert in rural areas, and are associated with each other by consumers. | ||
== CSA: common types of organisational structures == | |||
<u><b>Community/consumer-driven:</u></b> | |||
Consumers participate in or may even run the scheme working closely with the farmer who produces what they want. | |||
<u><b>Farmer led:</u></b> | |||
A farmer sets up, organises and maintains a CSA. The farmer might also recruit subscribers. The members financially subscribe, with little other involvement. | |||
<u><b>Shareholder/subscriber:</u></b> | |||
Local residents set up a CSA and hire a farmer to grow crops. Shareholders/subscribers control most of the management. | |||
<u><b>Farmer cooperative:</u></b> | |||
Farmer-driven CSA where two or more farms cooperate to supply its members with a greater variety of produce. This model allows individual farms to specialise in the most appropriate farming for that holding (larger farms may concentrate on field scale production, smaller farms on specialist crops and upland farms on rearing livestock). | |||
== What problems does CSA seek to address?<ref name=handbook>Notes from the ‘<i>European Handbook on Community Supported Agriculture Sharing Experiences</i>’. Note: The document has been funded by, among other, the European Commission’s program for life-long learning</ref>== | == What problems does CSA seek to address?<ref name=handbook>Notes from the ‘<i>European Handbook on Community Supported Agriculture Sharing Experiences</i>’. Note: The document has been funded by, among other, the European Commission’s program for life-long learning</ref>== | ||
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</ul> | </ul> | ||
== Resiliency of the cooperative model<ref>American study: <i | == Resiliency of the cooperative model<ref>American study: <i>World Council of Credit Unions study in Williams 2007</i> https://geo.coop/sites/default/files/0213-benefits-and-impacts-of-cooperatives.pdf/ Note: Percentages may not be precise nor well referenced but depicts the global resiliency of the coop system</ref>== | ||
Cooperative businesses have lower failure rates than traditional corporations and small businesses, after the first year of startup, and after 5 years in business. About 10% of cooperatives fail after the first year while 60 to 80% of traditional businesses fail after the first year. After 5 years, 90% of cooperatives are still in business, while only 3 to 5% of traditional businesses are still operating after 5 years. This is often because of the many people involved in starting a cooperative and the high level of community support for cooperatives. | Cooperative businesses have lower failure rates than traditional corporations and small businesses, after the first year of startup, and after 5 years in business. About 10% of cooperatives fail after the first year while 60 to 80% of traditional businesses fail after the first year. After 5 years, 90% of cooperatives are still in business, while only 3 to 5% of traditional businesses are still operating after 5 years. This is often because of the many people involved in starting a cooperative and the high level of community support for cooperatives. | ||
== CSA: common types of | == How does CSA fosters and support communities in various localities? == | ||
Cooperative businesses stabilise communities because they are community-based business anchors; and distribute, recycle, and multiply local expertise and capital within a community. Since most cooperatives are owned and controlled by local residents, they are more likely to promote community growth than an investor-oriented firm (a conventional supermarket promising jobs to a community, which is often one of the main arguments). | |||
As one cooperator of US based CSA argues in the comment section of a New York Times article on CSA: | |||
“<i>The farmer lives outside the city but sends weekly emails about life on the farm and hosts and open house each summer. Occasionally, he visits. He's also extremely responsive to members. And there is community at the distribution site in the form of members who come back year after year. I think that's the real secret of CSAs—the genuine, non-corporate ones—they blend first-rate produce with a way to feel connected. It's the exact opposite of ordering something on a website.</i>” | |||
== Where does CSA come from? == | |||
<b><u>The case of Japan: 🇯🇵</b></u> | |||
One of the oldest examples of the concept of CSA emerged in the 1960s in Japan. At the time, mothers of Japanese families worried about seeing agriculture industrialise with a massive use of chemicals (in 1957, the first victims of Minamata, poisoned with mercury, were declared). These mothers then founded in 1965 the first <i>teikei</i> (meaning in Japanese “cooperation”, “collaboration” or “partnership”) which primarily concerned dairy cooperatives. The principle of operation is as follows: in exchange for the purchase by subscription of the farmer's harvest, the latter agrees to provide food grown without chemicals. | |||
<b><u>The case of the USA: 🇺🇸</b></u> | |||
Alabama born and raised Dr. Booker T. Whatley is best known for his “regenerative farming system” as opposed to the term CSA. In combination with the direct marketing concept of <i>pick-your-own</i> (PYO), a customer harvesting operation managed by farmers and growers. Dr. Whatley also popularised the concept of subscription buyer's club for small farmers starting in the mid-50's. By doing so he also aimed to "generate an agrarian black middle class" in the post WWII USA. | |||
<u>The 10 Commandments of Whatley's philosophy:</u> | |||
<ol> | |||
<li>Provide year-round, daily cash flow.</li> | |||
<li>Be a pick-your-own operation.</li> | |||
<li>Have a guaranteed market with a Clientele Membership Club.</li> | |||
<li>Provide year-round, full-time employment.</li> | |||
<li>Be located on a hard-surfaced road within a radius of 40 miles of a population center of at least 50,000, with well-drained soil and an excellent source of water.</li> | |||
<li>Produce only what they clients demand—and nothing else!</li> | |||
<li>Shun middlemen and middle-women like the plague, for they are a curse upon thee.</li> | |||
<li>Consist of compatible, complementary crop components that earn a minimum of $3,000 per acre annually.</li> | |||
<li>Be 'weatherproof', at least as far as possible with both drip and sprinkler irrigation.</li> | |||
<li>Be covered by a minimum of $250,000 worth ($1 million is better) of liability insurance.</li> | |||
</ol> | |||
<b><u>The case of Europe: 🇪🇺</b></u> | |||
The first known CSA in Europe, <i>Les Jardins de Cocagne</i>, was founded in 1978 near Geneva, Switzerland. In the late 70s and through the 80s, only a few other CSA initiatives were started. Around the turn of the Millennium however the CSA movement gathered steam and started to spread. From then on we can observe a tremendous boom of the practice, largely in France thanks the elaboration of the AMAP (the french CSA) charter. | |||
== CSA, a farming system associated with 2 core social movements == | |||
<b><u>Food sovereignty:</b></u> | |||
*Food sovereignty is a term coined by members of the Via Campesina (LVC) in 1996<ref>La Via Campesina comprises 182 local and national organisations in 81 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Altogether it represents about 200 million farmers. Built on a strong sense of unity, solidarity between these groups, it defends peasant agriculture for food sovereignty as a way to promote social justice and dignity and strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture that destroys social relations and nature.</ref>, and asserts the right of people to define their own food systems. Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. | |||
<b><u>Solidarity economics:</b></u> | |||
*The idea and practice of "solidarity economics" emerged in Latin America in the mid-1980s and blossomed in the mid to late 90s. Growing dissatisfaction with the culture of the dominant market economy led groups of more economically privileged people to seek new ways of generating livelihoods and providing services. From largely a middle-class" counter-culture" - similar to that in the Unites States since the 1960's- emerged projects such as consumer cooperatives, cooperative child care and people’s healthcare initiatives that are complementary to existing national health systems currently becoming eroded by the crisis, housing cooperatives, intentional communities, and eco-villages. There were often significant class and cultural differences between these two groups. Nevertheless, the initiatives they generated all shared a common set of operative values: cooperation, autonomy from centralised authorities, and participatory self-management by their members. | |||
To this day, Ecuador 🇪🇨 and Bolivia 🇧🇴 have both included Solidarity Economy and Food sovereignty in their constitutions. | |||
As way to unify these two movements in one term, sociologist Thomas Lyson coined the term “<b><u>Civic Agriculture</b></u>” in 1999 to describe “<i>the emergence and growth of community-based agriculture and food production activities that not only meet consumer demands for fresh, safe, and locally produced foods but create jobs, encourage entrepreneurship, and strengthen community identity</i>”. | |||
== The question of land ownership for CSA == | |||
In many countries, the key issue for young would-be CSA farmers is the difficulties that they face in terms of access to land. | |||
<u>In practice (data from largest European census on CSA to date)<ref>This census was answered by 70,865 people fed in 403 CSAs https://urgenci.net/french/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Hitchman_CASS1.pdf Note: CSA initiatives being mostly independent, it is still rather tricky for Urgenci (which aimes to represent and lobby for of CSAs worldwide), to get enough CSAs to answer to their censuses.</ref>:</u> | |||
<ul> | |||
<li>In most cases, the farm land used to produce food distributed to CSAs belongs to the farmer, either in full property (47%), lease (11%), or a combination of both (10%)</li> | |||
<li>Some CSAs rent the land they get food from (17%), but only a few own it (4%)</li> | |||
<li>CSA and farmer collaboration to either rent or own the land exists but in negligible proportion (1%)</li> | |||
</ul> | |||
Solidarity economy provides two entry points in this field: that of <i>[http://www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/ Community Land Trusts]</i>, such as in the United Kingdom, or <i>[https://terredeliens.org/ Terre de Liens]</i> in France. In the case of the latter, the organisation has, to this day (July 2020), managed to buy around 6.400 hectares of land and build 223 farms. Terre de Liens combines an association (which aims to educate the public and help would-be farmers to set up their farms), an investment firm open to any citizen and private institutions willing to invest in resilient farming projects, as well as a foundation able to receive donations of land and farms. | |||
These types of organisations ensure that land is made available at affordable prices for either social housing or in this case farming, Community Gardens, allotments etc. These practices are typical of how solidarity economics can support an inclusive approach to food production, by intervening upstream in land zoning and ownership practice. | |||
== How do CSA members handle money? == | |||
CSA initiatives have different approaches when it comes to deciding how much money a member will pay over a period of time to support the farmer(s). In many of the schemes the farmers ask for a fixed share/box price, which covers their costs. These prices are often the same or a little higher than prices on the organic market. There are also some initiatives, where the price, or contribution, is different for people with low, medium or high income. Other initiatives don’t even ask for a price, but make their costs transparent and every-body gives what they want and can. The latter are rather scarce and ask for a high level of trust. | |||
In German CSAs the contribution paid by each household is based on a guide value, which is calculated by dividing the farm’s annual budget by the number of households involved. At other CSAs, the amount payed is double of the guide value, which allows the farm to invest and develop itself. In other CSAs, each household decides for itself how much it can and would like to contribute and gives the treasurer their signed declaration before or at the annual general meeting. The process of ensuring that the farm’s budget for the coming year is covered occurs at this meeting. The AMAP <i>La Courgette Solidaire</i>, in the area of Paris, France, created a “AMAP for all” share, to allow low income families to join the CSA by paying half price. The AMAP is accepting meal vouchers. The AMAP is furthermore receiving public grants which are used to provide “solidarity boxes”. | |||