Community Agriculture: Concepts, Models, and Impacts

International Journal of Agriculture Extension and Rural Development Studies

As many residents struggle with access to fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) and continue to face food insecurity issues, community gardens can be used as a strategy in alleviating these challenges and helping families reduce pandemic-related economic losses by supplementing their diets with nutritious foods. Community gardens are a great way to increase food security, improve public health and reduce crime rates. With a variety of setups, locations, and goals, they can play an important role in making healthy, ethical, and sustainable food available to all people. Having abundant fresh produce readily available in the community reduces grocery bills for families and provides food options when they are low on groceries. Saving money and reducing food insecurity are two benefits. This was crucial during the pandemic when many people experienced financial losses due to unemployment, and it is still crucial given the rising price of food today. This paper, through a rigorous literat...

Applied Geography, 2011

Food insecurity is a growing concern in the United States as it has been linked to increased health problems including obesity and diabetes. The community food security movement was created in an attempt to overcome this unequal distribution of food by localizing food production through approaches such as community gardening. The popularity of community gardening and the localization of food production are evident across the country, especially in central cities hoping to clean up vacant lots and in areas hoping to narrow the gap between production and consumption. Qualitative data from in-depth interviews with gardeners and a non-profit organization and field observations from food stores and community gardens in Baltimore, Maryland were used in this study to determine the extent to which community gardens contribute to food security. The selected study site represents different approaches to community gardening and different perceptions of healthy food. While it is evidenced that the community garden in this study contributes to individual, household, and community food security, additional help is needed in the form of education, policy, and funding to increase food security and promote healthy lifestyles.

Human Organization, 2000

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) seeks to create a direct relationship between farmers and those who eat their foodfarm members or shareholders. Data from a five-year study of eight CSA farms are used to examine the perceptions and behavior of farm members in three different ways: their motivations for membership, the role of women in initiating and maintaining farm membership, and how the extent of membership participation relates to member perceptions about and commitment to their farms. We interpret the significance of our results using Gidden's concept of modernity and Etzioni's concept of communitarianism. Finally we raise questions about the long-term sustainability of CSA, given the lifestyle and needs of the farmers in tension with the constraints and competing values of shareholders.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

2011

McNair Scholars Online Journal, 2010

Community learning garden programs help families grow and prepare their own food. The skills and knowledge gained from these programs can help families access more fresh locally-grown foods. However, locally-grown foods are often perceived to be too expensive for low-income families. Economic barriers such as transportation and access to convenient food sources and the perceived high cost of fresh foods limit the amount of fresh foods available to low-income families and individuals. This study was designed to analyze how participation in community learning garden programs helps increase lowincome families access to organic and/or fresh locally-grown foods. Although the preliminary sample findings are relatively small, key trends and findings identified can be used for further research. The community partner selected for the study was the Oregon Food Bank's (OFB) Seed to Supper learning garden program. The OFB learning garden programs "address the root causes of hunger through increased nutrition, self-reliance and community food security (Learning Gardens, n.d. para.1)." An analysis of OFB survey results helped assess the effectiveness of the Seed to Supper program and the impact the program has on food security for targeted populations. In addition, participants from the program were interviewed to document qualitative outcomes of the program. The interview and survey process clarified how much fresh produce the participants grew and where and how much produce they purchased. Two Seed to Supper instructors and two key community members were interviewed as well to gain valuable insight from their perspectives about the program. The suggestions and recommendations in this study offer many creative and practical solutions to help alleviate food insecurity.

Culture <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&amp;"/> Agriculture, 2004

Preventing chronic disease, 2015

The Farm to Work program is a modified community-supported agriculture model at worksites in Texas. The objective of the Farm to Work program is to increase fruit and vegetable intake among employees and their households by decreasing cost, improving convenience, and increasing access while also creating a new market for local farmers at worksites. The objectives of this article were to describe the development, implementation, and outcome of a 5-year participation trend analysis and to describe the community relationships that were formed to enable the successful implementation of the program. The Farm to Work program began in November 2007 as a collaborative effort between the nonprofit Sustainable Food Center, the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Web development company WebChronic Consulting LLC, and Naegelin Farm. The program provides a weekly or biweekly opportunity for employees to order a basket of produce online to be delivered to the worksite by a local farmer...

Public Health Nutrition

Objective:Subsidised or cost-offset community-supported agriculture (CO-CSA) connects farms directly to low-income households and can improve fruit and vegetable intake. This analysis identifies factors associated with participation in CO-CSA.Design:Farm Fresh Foods for Healthy Kids (F3HK) provided a half-price, summer CO-CSA plus healthy eating classes to low-income households with children. Community characteristics (population, socio-demographics and health statistics) and CO-CSA operational practices (share sizes, pick up sites, payment options and produce selection) are described and associations with participation levels are examined.Setting:Ten communities in New York (NY), North Carolina (NC), Vermont and Washington states in USA.Participants:Caregiver–child dyads enrolled in spring 2016 or 2017.Results:Residents of micropolitan communities had more education and less poverty than in small towns. The one rural location (NC2) had the fewest college graduates (10 %) and most p...

2017

This study necessarily involved extensive interviews with numerous Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operators and builds on the previous case study of selected CSAs published as The Changing CSA Strategic Business Model. The authors would like to again acknowledge the contributions of many to that study that were used to frame the questions for this survey. James Barham with AMS provided regular guidance on the survey design and cases. Disclaimer: The opinions and conclusion expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Agricultural Marketing Service.

Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 2021

"Civic agriculture," a term first coined by rural sociologist Thomas Lyson, refers to forms of agriculture that occur on a local level, from production to consumption, and are linked to a community's social and economic development. Sixteen years since its original articulation, the term "civic agriculture" has taken on greater significance in research, political activism, and community organizing. Grown from the roots of civic community theory, civic agriculture functions as a new branch of civic community theory that is ripe for theorization. In revisiting the foundations of the term, this review paper seeks to consolidate current and future research in the field of civic agriculture with a focus on its link to social welfare. This begins by reviewing the foundations of civic a *

2017

Along with grower and consumer benefits, there are also benefits for the Extension educators involved with CSAs. Sharp, Imerman and Peters (2002) found these benefits: » Increasing interaction with growers and their clientele » Building new markets » Building trust networks (social capital) The involvement of Extension educators increases their interaction between farms, consumers, and the community, while providing opportunities for research-based information to be shared. Through linking CSA farms, they gain connections, which create future business benefits and more sustainable environments. This involvement establishes new markets of consumer interest and investment from community members who would otherwise have no knowledge of CSAs.

California Agriculture, 2017

he informal economy, healthy food options and alternative urban food systems are interconnected in important ways. To better understand these connections, we analyzed the production, distribution and consumption of urban agricultural products in several low-income San Diego neighborhoods with a focus on community gardens. Community gardens play a critical role in alternative food systems since they typically operate in socially disadvantaged areas and serve to enhance the economic, social and nutritional needs of local residents. Integrating knowledge about food systems, health and ecology with knowledge about labor force dynamics and grassroots community development creates actionable theory suggesting new pathways for jointly improving social and economic conditions in the context of urban food systems. In this paper, we define the informal economy as economic transactions that are not regulated by the state and are primarily completed through cash transactions (Castells and Portes 1989; Hart 1973).