Study on Activity, Type and Establishment of Community Supported Agriculture in USA and Japan

미국과 일본의 CSA운동의 등장, 유형 및 활동사례

With increasing global concern that intensively synthetic-chemical based farming systems accelerated the decline in environmental quality, the sustainability of modem agriculture became the subject of great concern. It is well known that the movement of Community Supported Agriculture(CSA) has been contributed significantly to the development of organic agriculture in USA and Japan. It was supposed that CSA could be one of the best way to promote the movement of organic agriculture since there is little reliability on the organically grown food by consumer. In this paper it was focussed to study the movement of CSA in USA and Europe in order to provide an idea for establishment and movement of CSA in Korea to support the organic agriculture. In a CSA system, the farmer grows food for a group of shareholders who pledge to buy a portion of the farm's crop that season. This arrangement gives growers up-front cash to finance their operation and higher prices for produce, since the middleman has been eliminated. For most shareholder for CSA saving money is a secondary consideration, but fresh safe products and environmentally sound farming system. People become shareholder of CSA since they expect an organic farming which can ; \circled1protect the environment, minimize pollution, promote health, \circled2replenish and maintain long-term soil fertility by providing optimal conditions for soil biological activity, \circled3maintain diversity within the farming system and its surroundings and protect plant and wildlife habit, \circled4recycle materials and resources to the greatest extent possible within the farm and its surrounding community, \circled5maintain the integrity of organic food and processed products through each step of the process from planting to consumption, \circled6develop and adopt new technologies with consideration for their long range social and ecological impact. In all CSAs, the farmer develops a crop plan and a budget, which details costs for a growing season, including fair wages for the farmers. Experienced Information on increasing shareholder retention, the future of CSA, and getting started such as ideas for ongoing marketing, printed materials that set realistic expectations, working members, production, pick-up and delivery, setting prices, and receiving feedback were also briefly introduced.