The what-how-why of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): Difference between revisions

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”.

Connecting customers and farmers is a tricky business. It demands time, research and effort on both sides. Even after much research, it is still hard to know who and how to take part in this system. As expected in a liberal system of goods and services, many (often US based) companies have swooped in as “relay” between farmers and consumers. Often providing software, these companies have made it more efficient and simple to organise structures (buying vegetable boxes online, secured payment, live schedule etc) but have actually given shape to a system of intermediaries against which “CSAs” were originally fighting for. Indeed, these new companies<ref>*Peapod, FreshDirect, LocalRoots, Farmigo, etc…</ref> need to make profit (which is not a bad thing in essence) but therefore take a percentage of every transaction as well as using the term CSA as a sort of label to advertise their products — which is easy for them to do as the CSA system is decentralised and therefore has no real legal status and representative body. Hence, as customers are offered a large and confusing variety of providers, they are increasingly led to believe that they are supporting multiple farms at once. To that end, the CSA system comes to be weakened. To prevent these types of predicaments, the US state of California included the definition of the CSA into its legal system, it is therefore protecting any use of the term by other parties for profit purposes.<ref>http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB224&showamends=false</ref>