Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms need to grow a wide variety of produce to meet the needs of their public membership, rather than catering to large-scale food distributors that demand huge supplies of one crop. In other words, CSAs lead to an increase in biodiversity...

And almost all consumers who have the opportunity to communicate directly with the farmers who produce their food make it clear that they prefer a reduction in the amount of chemicals in their food - again turning market pressures towards practices that benefit rather than harm the environment.

Community Supported Agriculture is sweeping the world - from Switzerland, where it first started 25 years ago, to Japan, where the movement affects many thousands of people.

In America, where all but two per cent of the population has already been pulled off the land, the number of CSAs has climbed from only two in 1986 to 200 in 1992, and is closer to 600 today. Their approach, promoted energetically by Community Supported Agriculture of North America, is to encourage local consumers to buy a share of the year's forthcoming harvest.

In return for something between three to six hundred dollars, shareholders - some of whom supplement their payment with contributions of voluntary labour - receive a weekly bag of fresh organic produce throughout the growing season. As well as helping to link the local community back up with the land, the environment benefits from such set-ups through the diversification of what is grown for local markets, and the reduced need for wasteful transportation. Local farmers benefit from a stable local market for their goods.

But lasting progress will require changes at policy level as well. The unfair advantage now given to large-scale producers and marketers continues to threaten the success of all kinds of enterprise and initiative - including CSAs.

Community Supported Agriculture of North America, (tel 00 1 413 528 4374; e-mail:csana@bcn.net; Website: http://www.umass.edu/umext/CSA).

Farmers Markets in the UK;

Summarised from an article by Heather Elmhirst entitled 'Farmers Markets here to stay' in Positive News, 1999.

On a similar community-minded theme, Bath has started holding monthly Farmers Markets which cut out the costs of middlemen and transport by bringing local food producers and consumers into direct contact. Customers have said that they are not only happy to support their local producers, but also enjoy the social aspect of the markets which is markedly different from the anonymity of the supermarket.

Similar Farmers Markets have prospered in the USA, and the success of the Bath project has prompted interest from other small-scale producers in other areas of the UK who hope to follow its example.

CATEGORY: AGRICULTURE AND FOOD