Abstract
The focus of this article is community supported agriculture (CSA) as an alternative food movement and a bottom-up response to the problems of the dominant food systems. By utilizing social innovation approach that explores the relationship between causes for human needs and emergence of socially innovative food initiatives, the article examines how the CSA projects emerge and why, what is their innovative role as part of the social economy and what is their transformative potential. Based on qualitative data from four different models of CSA case studies in different regions of Wales, UK, and by using concepts from an alternative model for social innovation (ALMOLIN) as analytical tool, the article demonstrates that the Welsh CSA cases play distinctive roles as part of the social economy. They satisfy the needs for ecologically sound and ethically produced food, grown within communities of like-minded people and they empower individuals and communities at micro level, while at the same time experiment with how to be economically sustainable and resilient on a small scale. The paper argues that in order to become ‘workable utopias’, the CSA initiatives need to overcome the barriers that prevent them from replicating, participating in policies and decision-making at macro level, and scaling up.
Highlights
The growth in alternative food networks (AFNs) in late 1980s and early 2000s is indicative of the bottom-up responses to the unsustainable food systems that are increasingly unable to address the needs and demands of food producers and consumers alike (Sage 2014)
The process dimension is under-researched in terms of the actors’ perspective on the position and values of the community supported agriculture (CSA) against the main food economy, the ways of addressing the social injustice and exclusion, and comparative evaluation of the barriers and opportunities for transformation of different CSA types. We address these gaps by searching an answer to the main question of this study: how the CSA initiatives in Wales can become ‘workable utopias’ for food systems’ change through social inclusion and empowerment
Reflecting back on our main research question of how the CSA initiatives in Wales can become ‘workable utopias’ for food systems’ change through social inclusion and empowerment, we demonstrated that the Welsh CSA cases analysed here show great variety in their characteristics, processes and possibilities
Summary
Bos and Owen (2016) argue that these types of food provisioning systems are significantly different to conventional counterparts as they can redefine relations between producers and consumers through transparent short(er) food supply chains. These are founded upon quality and provenance and point towards more sustainable modes of production (Marsden et al 2000; Renting et al 2003; Sage 2003; Goodman 2004; Ilbery and Maye 2005; Morris and Kirwan 2011). Since most of the grains are traded across borders as a result of the trade liberalization of 1980s, there have been fears of shortage
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