Articles

Community Supported Agriculture

CIAS began to study the local community supported agriculture (CSA) movement in 1993 when CSA farms began to appear in the Madison area. With SARE funding and collaborators in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, CIAS has conducted case studies of both individual farms and CSA farm networks. The research has emphasized the organizational aspects of running this type of farm, with research team members exploring important issues such as economics, scale, and member involvement and education. A series of research briefs and a bibliography of CSA how-to guides for growers are available, as well as a forthcoming CSA guidebook. Future work on CSA will focus on economics, quality of life issues, and farmer entry strategies.

More recently, CIAS has collaborated on a national survey of CSA farms. This is a national, longitudinal panel study of CSA farms with a survey every two years. The results from the 1999 growing season are available in a report: CSA Across the Nation: Findings from the 1999 CSA Survey. Results from the 2001 growing season are also available. For more information, contact John Hendrickson.

CIAS publications on CSA include: