Designing a community-supported agriculture model for increasing food security

Area of Science:

• Agricultural Economics
• Rural Sociology
• Sustainable Agriculture

Background:

• Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers a participatory and sustainable socioeconomic model for food production.
• CSA contributes to food security, improved food quality, and conservation of agricultural resources.
• Institutionalizing participation is crucial for agricultural sector transformation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and operationalize a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model in Markazi province, Iran.
• To assess the factors influencing the development of CSA for enhanced food security.

Main Methods:

• A survey study utilizing questionnaires administered to 84 active farmers in Ghazel Dareh village.
• Statistical analysis performed using SPSS v. 25 and LISREL.
• A census sampling method was employed for the target population of 110 farmers.

Main Results:

• Economic, socio-institutional, policy-making, educational, and infrastructural factors significantly impacted CSA development.
• Infrastructural factors (impact factor 0.88) had the most significant positive influence on CSA.
• Socio-institutional factors (impact factor 0.54) also positively influenced CSA, albeit to a lesser extent.

Conclusions:

• All identified factors positively influenced CSA development, indicating potential for improvement.
• Enhancing economic, socio-institutional, policy, educational, and infrastructural elements can foster CSA growth.
• The designed CSA model shows promise for increasing food security in the studied region.