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Consumer Benefits from Community Supported Agriculture Membership
Author(s) -
Cooley Jack P.,
Lass Daniel A.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
applied economic perspectives and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.4
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 2040-5804
pISSN - 2040-5790
DOI - 10.2307/1349547
Subject(s) - agriculture , business , agricultural economics , marketing , economics , natural resource economics , geography , archaeology
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a recent institution in agriculture. In CSA, both the farmer and consumer share the risks and the bounty of farm production. This study focuses on consumer benefits from CSA membership, especially cost savings. To estimate consumer cost savings, quantities of produce in weekly shares for three CSA farms in Massachusetts were measured and retail values calculated. Cost savings were calculated as the differences between share prices and retail values for three CSA operations. Benefits ranged from 60% to 150% of share prices for the CSA farms studied, based on retail prices for organic produce.