It is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming.

[1] The model is a subcategory of civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of community through local markets.

[3] As a model where market agents do not interact solely as competitors but as “members of a community collaborating in pursuing a collective action for the commonwealth”[3] it is also recognized and supported by public policies in some countries.

As a prefigurative practice that decommodifies food and “strengthens the imaginary of community as a source of reward and space of emancipation“[3] CSA has been acknowledged as an important step-stone in a sustainability transition in agri-food systems.

Typically, farmers try to cultivate a relationship with subscribers by sending weekly letters of what is happening on the farm, inviting them for harvest, or holding an open-farm event.

[10] The term CSA is mostly used in the United States, Canada and the UK but a variety of similar production and economic sub-systems are in use worldwide and in Austria and Germany as Solidarische Landwirtschaft (lit.

The CSA Garden at Great Barrington was created in Massachusetts by Jan Vander Tuin, Susan Witt, and Robyn Van En.

The Temple-Wilton Community Farm was created in New Hampshire by Anthony Graham, Trauger Groh, and Lincoln Geiger.

[13] Since the 1980s, community supported farms have been organized throughout North America—mainly in New England, the Northwest, the Pacific coast, the Upper-Midwest and Canada.

CSAs have even become popular in urban environments such as the New York City Coalition Against Hunger's CSA program that helps serve under-served communities.

In the United States the governmental program SARE offered grants for research and education projects that advance sustainable agricultural practices like CSA.

For the producer it means a capacity and possibility to diversify production and has the advantage of a new distribution channel with very low entry costs.

FRACP is sponsored by Uniterre, a small farmers' union that is part of La Via Campesina and promotes the concept of food sovereignty.

(Agrarian Community of Social Promotion) in Pisa,[29][30] while the largest CSA is Arvaia in Bologna, boasting 220 active members and 500 associates.

[31] As of 2021, a survey conducted by Numes, a project born in collaboration with the Arvaia CSA, identified 15 formal CSAs, although the actual number is likely higher.

GAS and CSA share similar ethical values and organizational structures, operating based on principles of solidarity, mutuality, and sustainability.

In a CSA, members choose to provide financial support to farmers, thereby sharing the risks inherent in agricultural work.

CSA enterprises across the UK have been growing fast, with most of the farm to community connections beginning and remaining as grassroots initiates, despite limited funding from government or private sector.

Support came from the Soil Association’s programme within the Big Lottery funded “Making Local Food Work” scheme which ran from 2007 to 2012.

This supported the growth of CSAs across each of the countries, through providing funding that enabled the use of community and social enterprise approaches to link consumers and producers in the local food-related third sector.

CSAs create direct connections between producers and consumers through alternative markets and the members and farmers share the risk of farming.

[citation needed] CSAs generally focus on the production of high quality foods for a local community, often using organic or biodynamic farming methods, and a shared risk membership–marketing structure.

[34] 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.

CSA theory purports that the more a farm embraces whole-farm, whole-budget support, the more it can focus on quality and reduce the risk of food waste.

This core group of members helped to make decisions about and run the CSA including marketing, distribution, administrative, and community organization functions.

[1] This study suggested that farmers may charge less than they need to earn fair wages due to undervaluing their expenses and to offset the high costs of CSA products and make it more affordable for customers; see moral economy.