Green Care: A Conceptual Framework - Frisk i naturen

5.3.5 Food production in rural areas: community
supported agriculture and box schemes
Another model of food production relevant to green care is that of
community supported agriculture or CSA. Community-supported
agriculture (also known as “community sponsored agriculture”) is a
relatively new socio-economic model of food production, sales, and
distribution aimed at both increasing the quality of food while substantially
reducing potential food losses and financial risks for the producers. Over
the last 20 years in the US and Canada, CSA has become a popular way
for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer, with
over 1000 CSAs in existence (Pretty, 2002). Typically a farmer offers a
certain number of ‘shares’ to the public and these usually consist of a box
of vegetables (but other farm products such as meat, flowers herbs etc. may
be included). Interested consumers purchase a share and in return receive
a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce weekly throughout the farming
season.
Like many green care programmes, CSA operates with a much greaterthan-usual
degree of involvement of consumers and other stakeholders,
which results in a stronger than usual consumer-producer relationship. The
core design includes developing a cohesive consumer group that is willing
to fund a whole season’s budget in order to get quality foods.
In the UK, box schemes outnumber CSAs. These schemes began in the
early 1990s and now over 550 schemes supply households weekly. Farmers
contract to supply basic vegetables and add other produce depending on the
season. Over time, box schemes also increase on-farm biodiversity as in
response to consumer demand, many farmers have increased the diversity
of crops grown.
A central rationale for both CSAs and box schemes is that they emphasise
that payment is not just for the food, but for support of the farm as a whole.
It is the linkage between farmer and consumer that guarantees the quality of
the food. This encourages social responsibility, increases the understanding
of farming issues amongst consumers, and results in greater diversity in
the farmed landscape (Pretty, 2002). Many of these farms either already
provide green care services in conjunction with food production or are
often ideally suited to do so as they employ more people per hectare, and
provide livelihoods on a much smaller area than conventional farming.
66 Green Care: A Conceptual Framework