Beyond the market—New practices of supply in times of crisis: The example community‐supported agriculture

Abstract

AbstractThe discourses and material consequences of the crisis dynamics of capitalist societies increasingly spawn practices of production and supply that are situated outside capitalist market logic. One example of such an alternative practice is Community‐Supported Agriculture (CSA), a social innovation that is comprehensively analyzed here in the German context. Applying the concept of social innovation, the authors carried out a standardized survey, semi‐structured interviews and a discourse analysis of CSA farms in Germany. This paper identifies the (international) crisis discourses to which Community‐Supported Agriculture is a reaction, and the motivations of CSA members are outlined. Innovative facets of CSA such as solidarity, de‐commodification, and prosuming are identified. It becomes apparent that Community‐Supported Agriculture is not a homogeneous phenomenon, but can be differentiated into various types ? sociopolitical, spiritual‐communal, and pragmatic‐economic ‐ which differ in respect of how they express (social) innovation as well as in their attitudes to crises.