Abstract
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become an alternative approach for small-sized farmers in many countries. However, CSA is a somewhat challenging concept in Taiwan because many CSA projects face difficulties and obstacles related to sustainability, so relevant literature is rare. This pilot study investigates a potential CSA program in a farmers’ market to observe whether farmers’ market consumers would like to participate or not. A total of 320 survey responses collected from a farmers’ market were examined by an interval regression model. Results show that respondents are willing to pay and to be a CSA member of the farmers’ market. This study identifies that consumers are willing to share the risks of upfront payment with farmers. The preferred length of the contract means that a compromise is made in order to implement the CSA program. The implications involving a flexible length of contract and the budget should be taken into consideration by farmers, farmers’ market managers, and policymakers for devising promotion strategies, enrolling shareholders, and promoting CSA in Taiwan. Future study should focus on the consumer characteristics and factors affecting their decision to subscribe to CSA.
Highlights
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a local farm production-marketing and partnership between farmers and consumers
With respect to the origins and the development of CSA, according to the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) [8], CSA emerged in Japan and in Switzerland in the 1970s
There is a stagnant trend in the CSA market in Taiwan, we aim to study whether a farmers’ market is a potential channel for the CSA to access and utilize a wide variety of other marketing channels
Summary
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a local farm production-marketing and partnership between farmers and consumers. The Taiwanese government has promoted small-sized farmers, local farm products, farmers’ market and organic cultivation, which could be connected to the CSA core concept [17]. Uncertainty in domestic agricultural production is challenging for the CSA development, making consumers hesitant to share the risk of farming with farmers. Farmers have experienced problems supplying adequate quantity and varieties to satisfy consumers’ demands All these causes lead to a difficulty in boosting CSA that could hinder the concept of sharing the farming risks with farmers and consumers, which is uncommon and not familiar to Taiwanese consumers. The purposes of this research are to examine consumers’ awareness and willingness to support the CSA and to estimate the WTP for the weekly share budget in participating in the CSA in NCHU Organic Farmers’ Market
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