Perceived resilience of community supported agriculture in Germany

Context

Amid an uncertain future with increasing environmental, economic, social, and institutional challenges, farmers in Germany need to find strategies to become more resilient through capacities of robustness, adaptability, and transformability. Parallel to that, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), an alternative food and value chain network in which producers and consumers share the risks involved in farming, is rapidly spreading in the country. CSA has the potential to address sustainability concerns while at the same time improving farm resilience.

Objective

The main objective of this study is to provide an understanding of how a CSA-structure on a farm may impact farm resilience. It also aims to investigate how CSA farmers in Germany perceive the resilience of their farms, its functions, and the challenges they may face in the future.

Methods

A mixed methodology was applied, consisting of a case study with one CSA farmer following the approach for a resilience assessment developed by Meuwissen et al. (2019), and a survey with CSA farmers from Germany. The case study involved an in-depth interview, a resilience perception assessment and a Fuzzy-Cognitive-Mapping workshop, whose results were used as a starting point for developing the survey.

Results and conclusion

The case study revealed mechanisms for improving farm resilience through CSA, particularly through increased income security, risk protection, market independence, and satisfaction. These same resilience improving mechanisms could also be identified among the surveyed CSA farmers. Overall, CSA farmers showed a high level of perceived resilience in comparison to non-CSA farmers from a similar survey in a different study.

Significance

The study is the first of its kind to analyze CSA farmers in Germany through the lens of farm resilience theory. The study provides first insights to how transitioning to CSA affects the perceived resilience of farmers as well as underlying motivations. The results provide a strong indication that CSA could offer a viable strategy to help combat the resilience crisis, shedding thus a positive light on the current spread of the movement in Germany.