In recent years, every industry has undergone rapid, extensive and sometimes devastating changes, and the food industry is no exception.
Our world is changing, our population is growing, our climate is changing and our food systems are under more pressure than ever. The demand for food is expected to increase by 50% and the demand for food of animal origin by almost 70%.
Like us farm animals, we started experimentally in the 1960s, but became an industry in Norway in the 1980s and Chile in the 1990s. The salmon farming industry has grown significantly in recent years. 40 years,
The future of us
We recognize that increased crop production is necessary to ensure future protein needs are met, but this must be accompanied by a significant reduction in environmental impact and an improvement in resource efficiency. We recognize our ability and responsibility to drive positive change on a large scale and we are committed to seeking and supporting progress in the pursuit of healthy and sustainable food systems.…
The first CSA in Belo Horizonte appeared in 2015, at the initiative of an idealizer who articulated a group formed by 34 co-producers and two farmers. During the first year, the organization experienced rapid expansion. There were a large number of producers and consumers requesting to be part of the group, totaling more than 200 people, however, the management structure was unable to absorb these requests. An internal dispute then emerged as to how new producers and consumers would become part of the group. The creator and some consumers understood that new requests should be met, and that, based on that, the management process should be structured.
In turn, other co-producers who were part of the management group understood that first they should better structure themselves to, little by little, carry out the expansion. They justified the difficulty in meeting requests for participation mainly because the activity was based on voluntary work. Furthermore, they emphasized that the expansion would risk reducing social ties. A few months later, realizing that the conflict was intensifying and to maintain social cohesion among the members, it was decided to divide the CSA into two smaller groups, each with its form of management, maintaining logistics and delivery location of the baskets.
After the separation, CSA Minas increased the number of linked consumer families. CSA Nossa Horta, on the other hand, continued to offer family baskets along the same lines as before, with plans to also implement individual baskets. Despite the division, both initiatives have the same letter of principles, which is the adhesion contract approved at the General Meeting held on August 29, 2015, that is, before the group’s separation.
The charter of principles has a clear relationship with the Teikei principles which, despite the different forms of action, are shared by most CSA models.
These Consist Of:
I – Organic or agroecological production;
II – Sharing responsibilities, risks, and benefits;
III – Assiduity and quality in production;
IV – Relationships of friendship and mutual help;
V – Transparency, collaborative management, and fair price;
VI – Co-responsibility.
However, some differences were observed, both about small changes in the values of the baskets and in the way of dividing these values within the group, as well as in the structure and perception of the best form of management – CSA Nossa Horta approached a horizontal model of management, while CSA Minas condensed management into the figure of its creator.
From Price Culture To Culture Of Appreciation
At CSA, agriculture is supported by the community. The farmer stops selling his products through intermediaries and also relies on the participation of people to organize and finance their production. Whoever chooses to be part of a CSA ceases to be a consumer and becomes a co-farmer.
Trust Between Farmers And Co-farmers
To create a CSA, it is necessary to establish relationships of trust. The farmer presents all the information about his costs and means of production and the community commits to financing, paying in advance for the food that will be produced. The minimum commitment period is usually 6 months.
Living Point
The food is distributed among the community members delivered to Living Points near their homes, weekly. Co-farmers are responsible for collecting their products according to the number of quotas they have. A quota provides for approximately 10 items of vegetables, fruits, and vegetables.
What’s In The Csa Basket?
A basket provides for approximately 7 to 10 items containing leaves, roots, vegetables, and fruits. The number of items may vary in each CSA and is an agreement to be established between members of the community. Other complementary products such as bread, eggs, cheeses, honey, and whatever else the community can support and wish to support may be part of the CSA.
What Are The Farmer’s Responsibilities?
At CSA, the farmer is committed to sharing information about his real production costs, needs, and production capacities (quantities and diversity) transparently. Besides, it establishes a routine for harvesting and distributing food at the point of coexistence. The property’s doors are always open to co-farmers and family members so that they can visit and discover the production area of which they are part of. The farmer also undertakes to respect the production methods agreed with the co-growers, informing the co-farmers, whenever necessary, of the measures and interventions that are necessary for maintaining production or expansion.…
CSA is a Community that Supports Agriculture, a model in which consumers take the risks of production and share the results of planting, in a system of collaboration with farmers.
CSA Atibaia has existed for two years and two months and is composed of 40 families. Participants pay monthly to have a basket of produce grown in a garden near their homes.
Interestingly, it was a French agronomy intern who brought to the country a mixture of Teikei and the CSA program, which in France alone has around six thousand groups. The internship ended at the Center of Agroecology of Paraná, but the agronomist Manuel Delafoulhouze did not leave the country any more – nor from the Cestas Solidárias project – because he ended up marrying a Brazilian woman.
In common, CSA and the Cestas Solidárias project seek to promote close cooperation between those who produce and those who receive the products. The consumer undertakes to finance the agricultural activity, with advance payment, and the producer undertakes to deliver a certain amount of organic products religiously.
The name CSA is attributed to farmer Jan Vander Tuin, who, in the 1980s, did a first experiment in community-supported agriculture near Zurich, Switzerland. He followed the principles of biodynamic agriculture, which is based on Rudolf Steiner’s ideas of anthroposophy. This explains why many CSAs originate in communities where there are schools that adopt Waldorf pedagogy, which is also based on anthroposophy.
This form of organization of CSAs was spread by practitioners of organic farming in expansion in the United States in the 1990s and 2000s.
Today there are CSAs in several countries, including Japan, the United States, France, China, and Brazil, maintained by families and also by restaurants in large cities.
Participative planning: Matres’ activities start in a participatory way in meetings and dialogues about the desires and motivations of the people involved, as well as the reality of the group that demanded the work.
Basic CSA Course: the course will be an introduction to the philosophical principles and practical tools for forming communities that support agriculture.
Participatory Diagnosis: A survey of the productive capacity and income needs of farmers interested in creating the CSA will be carried out. The diagnosis involves fieldwork and workshops to discuss the results.
Proposed Scenarios for the CSA: based on the participatory diagnosis, operating scenarios for the CSA will be drawn up with the group. The work involves CSA cost planning and the quota value.
Mobilization of Coagriculturists: the work consists of identifying agriculturists, holding an awareness-raising meeting and lecture, monitoring the visit to farmers, preparing the term of commitment, and facilitating a meeting on the functioning of the CSA.
Implementation of CSA: support to the elaboration of Terms of Commitment and organization of the first day of deliveries.
Methodology
To meet the objective, two procedures were used: the documentary research and the application of the questionnaire.
To characterize the agricultural marketing model of Sustainable Agriculture by the Community, we preliminarily researched articles
scientific and CSA websites to better understand the subject. Then, we selected the articles that best explained the topic and supported by
data obtained from the websites of some of the CSAs that contextualizes the scenario. From that, we started to structure the questionnaire that gave us
to understand the marketing issues that we did not find in the texts, such as how the relationship
between supply and demand, economic viability, and also its organizational structure. Our interest was to understand specificities that
no bibliography we found described.
Then we applied the pilot questionnaire to find out possible mistakes in the wording of the survey, such as the complexity of the questions and
unnecessary questions. This pilot questionnaire was conducted in-person to the interviewee, in this case, a producer responsible for a CSA.…