Current Status and Development Strategy for Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) in China

Abstract

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is considered to be a new alternative mode for agricultural development, which has developed rapidly in China and attracted the attention of scholars, because it shows great concern on food safety, environmental protection and sustainable development of agriculture. Based on a comprehensive analysis of a large number of documents at home and abroad, this paper reviews the research on community-supported agriculture from the perspective of its origin, development process, characteristics, modes, functions and problems, aiming at summarizing the experiences and current problems and demonstrating recent research and development status of CSA in China in hope of providing references for its practice and research.The key conclusions in this review are: (1) CSA has a short history in China, but it is developing rapidly; (2) Chain's CSA is characterized by a cooperative network with food safety as the primary development goal, agricultural product distribution as the main operation mode, and trust as the basis; (3) China's CSA lacks of government's support, and develops roughly at a small-scale. (4) With unique modes and functions, China's CSA is facing some problems such as management, funding, talents, markets, technology and consumers' trust. The development of CSA in China needs joint efforts from government, producers and consumers. China's CSA needs to rely on its own advantages, make full use of its economic, social, ecological and cultural functions, combine Internet and ecological agricultural technology and explore the local modes with Chinese characteristics.

Features and Functions of Multifunctional Urban Agriculture in the Global North: A Review

“…They originate from the concept of "commons, " bringing together communities into collaborative efforts toward the achievement of a shared objective. In France known as AMAP (Tang et al, 2019), elsewhere generally referred to as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) schemes (van der Schans et al, 2016), they generally originate and grow from grassroots experiences of groups of activists and environmentally concerned citizens. In these experiences, citizens move from consumer's concept and become so-called prosumers, capable of influencing the structure and overall sustainability of their food systems.…”

Social Innovation for Food Security and Tourism Poverty Alleviation: Some Examples From China

“…As a result, a network among local housewives in Japan was developed to help members source their food directly from organic farmers ( Miyamoto, 2018 ). Eventually, these networks progressively became global, with Urgenci, an online platform uniting millions of local producers and consumers ( Inoue, 2019 ; Tang et al, 2019 ; Struś et al, 2020 ). These networks are examples of a community-supported agriculture model and are effective in facilitating social development and reducing poverty within rural China because consumers commit themselves to buy from local producers regularly.…”

The Role of Local Seasonal Foods in Enhancing Sustainable Food Consumption: A Systematic Literature Review

“…They are also developing a fundamental approach to increase sustainable agriculture and food consumption [ 29 ]. The expansion of CSAs depends on citizens’ awareness of environmental protection, involving their comprehension and implementation capacity of circular economy, environmental policy, and green production [ 124 ].…”

“… Social, Economic, and Environment Data analysis of CSA status in China No CSA Data analysis N.A. H [ 124 ] Tatebayashi et al, 2019 To identify the structure of food-sharing networks and non- market food species. Social Face-to-face interviews and online survey Yes Food Sharing Network N = 281 Farmers (n = 15); consumers (251) IS H [ 43 ] Werner et al, 2019 To identify key factors of understanding local food systems from a regional perspective.…”