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Center Studies Role of Community Supported Agriculture in Strengthening Local and Regional Food Systems
As agriculture becomes more globalized and farm-to-fork food miles multiply, consumers become increasingly removed from the people and places that produce the food they eat. Some people along the food chain are attempting to reverse this trend by participating in Community Supported Agriculture.
CSA reconnects consumers with producers, the land, and their communities. It (re)localizes agriculture by promising to create rural job opportunities, retain local income, and reshape community relationships. While many CSA enterprises are owned and operated by a single proprietor or family, others are cooperative ventures in which multiple producers participate.
The North Central Regional Center for Rural Development recently received a one-year grant to study collaborative Community Supported Agriculture in Iowa. The grant was awarded through the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture’s 2005 Marketing and Food Systems Initiative.
This project will study the role played by for-profit, multi-producer CSA in strengthening local and regional food systems. The study will determine whether collaborative CSA in Iowa and the North Central region acts as a business incubator for single family/individually-owned CSA. Research activities will also focus on how collaborative CSA impacts the business decisions and actions of local agricultural entrepreneurs. In addition, the study will identify the factors that compel producers and consumers to invest in CSA, and factors that prompt them to withdraw.
The NCRCRD is partnering with CSA producers, organizers, members, and the Iowa Network for Community Agriculture to help in this effort. The NCRCRD is also looking for partners to study collaborative CSA in other states within the North Central region.
Results from this study will be used to develop educational and outreach activities. These activities will be used to inform rural community and economic development planners, policymakers, and local foods-based entrepreneurs, consumers, organizations, advocates and interests how to best support small-scale, rural agricultural enterprise at the community, state and regional levels.
For more information on the Community Supported Agriculture project, contact Corry Bregendahl, NCRCRD research associate, (515) 294-2878, corry@iastate.edu.
Return to Inside this Issue (Vol. 28, No.1, 2005)
Return to Rural Development News Index
North
Central Regional Center for Rural Development
Iowa State University
107 Curtiss Hall
Ames, IA 50011-1050
(515) 294-8321, (515) 294-3180 fax
For questions, comments or concerns about the NCRCRD website, contact
.
Last updated May 12, 2006 .