Alternative Approaches to Food: Community Supported Agriculture in Urban China

Abstract

Abstract:One of the most remarkable features of China's development path is its large-scale and fast-paced urbanization. As cities already accommodate more than half of China's population, new challenges to urban food systems have emerged concurrently. Concerns over environmental degradation and food safety have provoked growing dissatisfaction with China's food regime. Amidst these concerns, the aim of this paper is to study the role of new and alternative approaches to food, focusing in on the question of how community supported agriculture (CSA) can deal with the food-related issues emerging from China's development. The paper adopts Granovetter's notions of social embeddedness to describe CSA's relational role in consumer-farmer dynamics, as well as the structural role within its broader relational context. Empirical data is drawn from surveys distributed among CSA farms, and interviews with key stakeholders in the Chinese CSA movement. The study finds that the model of CSA demonstrates an innovative approach to deal with food safety issues, address sustainability, and operate in an environment where future food demands are most critical. Although the movement's structural embeddedness is bound by several limitations and contradictions, it is argued that the CSA model offers important insights and adds value into ameliorating China's food systems.

The transformative power of commoning and alternative food networks

“…Given this background, many AFNs in China provide an antidote to a weakening of institutionalised trust. AFNs permit more personal contact and face-toface provision of food, allowing individual and organisational trust to help mitigate safety concerns (Wang et al 2015, Krul and Ho 2017, Zhang 2018. As previous studies have pointed out, trust in AFNs is often not a reflection of the properties of the product, but an endorsement of the configuration of social relations within the network (Thorsoe and Kjeldsen 2015).…”

Can members’ WeChat engagement affect relational outcomes in community‐supported agriculture? Empirical evidence from China

“…CSA was introduced into China in the early 2000s and it has gained localization development since the establishment of Little Donkey Farm in 2008 (Fu & Ye, ). A variety of explanations could be offered for this phenomenon, including the continuously evident environmental problems and food safety crisis (Krul & Ho, ; Schumilas & Scott, ; Si, Schumilas, & Scott, ), and China’s rising middle class with a growing demand for high‐quality food (Shi, Cheng, Lei, Wen, & Merrifield, ). Indeed, CSA programs play an important role in addressing both environmental and socio‐economic issues associated with China’s dominant agricultural regime (Si et al, ).…”

“…Over the past decade, CSA farms have gained rapid development in China. So far, there are currently over 500 CSA farms in China (Krul & Ho, ). While China’s CSA farms continue to increase, they still face many challenges.…”

“…While China’s CSA farms continue to increase, they still face many challenges. Prior studies have noted that the challenges include high member turnover (W. Chen, ), high cost of operation (Krul & Ho, ), shortage of human resources and technologies (Fu & Ye, ), and other difficulties.…”

Identifying the Conditions for Rural Sustainability through Place-Based Culture: Applying the CIPM and CDPM Models into Meibei Ancient Village

“…To tackle these challenges, Chinese government put forward a series of strategic approaches by launching the new urbanization program [8][9][10] Sustainability 2017, 9, 1334 2 of 15 with an emphasis on the following aspects [11,12]: (i) economically, promoting strongly innovation through Industrial 4.0 initiative and massive entrepreneurship & innovation campaign [13]; (ii) socially, enhancing vigorously people's livelihood by investing more and upgrading the existed urban/rural utilities and facilities [14]; (iii) spatially, focusing continuously on urban agglomeration and new village construction, as well as taking the specialized town development [15] as a new thrust; (ix) environmentally, pushing hard on comprehensive environmental protection and eco-diversity including urban agriculture [16,17]; (x) institutionally, inviting sincerely the involvement and participation of multiple stakeholders [18], especially in attracting investment through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) practice [19].…”