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community supported agriculture

Community Supported Agriculture - The Brexit Proof Food Revolution

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Community Supported Agriculture - The Brexit Proof Food Revolution

 

Written by Ben Raskin, Chair of Community Supported Agriculture Network UK

I write this in the run up to Brexit Dday. Whether you are remain or leave, the uncertainty of Brexit is a reality. Community Supported Agriculture has potential benefits however that apply to any uncertainty, manmade or otherwise.

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First some challenges facing horticultural businesses in the run up to Brexit, and in particular to the threat of a No Deal Brexit.

·      Labour –Solutions may be found in time but there are widespread fears that securing the necessary workforce when we have left the Union will be more difficult.

·      Availability of Produce – with no trade barriers, gaps in UK supplies can be easily met with imports of a wide range of products all year round. With barriers it may be harder to source the range of produce that is currently on offer.

·      Pricing – The flipside of a global supply of produce is continual downward pressure on prices. As a result, many mid-size growing businesses have disappeared. We now see a polarisation between larger and larger businesses that use scale to meet supermarket demand, and a proliferation of very small-scale operations that supply specialist high value products direct to local customers. At both ends of the scale tiny margins are a real threat to business sustainability.

Here are some thoughts on how Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) might offer a Brexit proof business model, but firstly what is the CSA model?

Direct Connection

Find out more about The different types of csa
in the UK

Consumers, often described as CSA members, are closely linked to the farm, and provide support that goes beyond a straight forward marketplace exchange of money for goods. They might have invested in the farm or business or share the costs of production. They may instead accept a share in the harvest or providing labour.  

The most common produce for CSA farms is vegetables, but anything can be produced with the CSA model for instance eggs, poultry, bread, fruit, pork, lamb, beef and dairy produce. CSA farms are even developing around woodlands for firewood and more recently fish.

Benefits for all

Farmers receive a more stable and secure income and closer connection with their community, and consumers benefit by eating fresh healthy local food, feeling more connected to the land where their food is grown and learning new skills.

CSA helps to address increasing concerns about the lack of transparency, sustainability and resilience of our food system. It is one of the most radical ways that we can re-take control and ownership of our food system.

Read more about the


benefits of csa

The proposition of consumer and producer sharing risk and reward may not seem particularly attractive in an environment where food is cheap and plentiful. Why pay money up front or commit to a long-term arrangement with a farmer when you can pop to the shops or login to your favourite online retailer and get what you want whenever you want it.

Imagine instead a situation where lorries are delayed, or tariffs are high. Prices may shoot up. Importers may seek easier markets. Having a guaranteed supply of food (weather permitting of course) begins to make a bit more sense.

Beyond the practical, being a CSA member brings a whole range of social benefits. Opportunities to join in with farming, learn more about how your food is produced and perhaps even improve your physical and mental health.

While the CSA business model is still in its infancy in this country with 100 + CSA farms, new ones are starting all the time. You can find out your nearest one here. In USA and France there are thousands of CSA farms, helped perhaps by not having a developed organic box scheme market. In these and other countries many CSA farms are even supplying into cities and feeding urban populations.

While I accept of course that the CSA model will not suit all farms or farmers, it does offer a genuine vision for transforming our relationship with food and a way of shaping a future proof food supply.

CSA NETWORK UK : https://communitysupportedagriculture.org.uk/

 



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Land and Deliver : Erasmus

Land and Deliver : Erasmus

Written by Tom Carman and Ruth West, Real Farming Trust.

Land is what we use to grow the food we eat. For years in the UK many new entrants to farming, as in the rest of Europe, have been facing increasing difficulties accessing affordable and secure land.  There were and still are a mixture of reasons contributing to these difficulties, which have been identified as part of an Erasmus partnership and learning programme working across Europe called Access to Land.  This project is pooling knowledge and experience from organisations in France, Romania, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany and the UK.

The starting point for this work was looking at the barriers and hurdles facing new entrants to farming. The demand for land is high as there are competing interests for its use – farming, housing, woodland enterprise, industrial developments etc.  Planning systems across Europe are regulated to different degrees, and whilst planning systems can help to bring different stakeholders together to discuss land use, they don’t align with the timing needs for farmers to make a living. In addition to this, there is scepticism amongst the status quo in UK farming about the viability of alternative approaches to food production and land management such as agro-ecology, organic and bio-dynamic farming or permaculture.  This is despite increasing evidence that these approaches can provide a living and the increasingly obvious need for land to be managed in a way that is good for the planet.  There is also competition amongst entrant farmers, as when scare land does become available there are many people who apply to use it.

Difficult land access has had strategic, structural and operational effects on countries.  For instance the UK is not producing enough food: around 60% is imported, with many horticultural products coming from Spain.  The effect of this has been to decrease the pool of entrant farmers in the UK leaving an increasingly aging farming population. The result has been a loss of farming skills and a lack of innovation – new entrant farmers bring with them the desire and knowledge to practice agro-ecologial farming, but without the ability to access land, they cannot build experience or share agro-ecological credibility.

The exciting part to this work though, is learning about innovative approaches that are helping agro-ecologial farmers to access land better. For example, Terre de Liens in France has successfully brought together key stakeholders across France including local authorities, conventional farming regulators, citizens and new entrants to open up 3,000 hectares of French farmland to organic food production.  In Germany, a network of land access co-operatives has started to emerge that work from a national to local level, opening up land for agro-ecological farmers. And in the UK, the Community Supported Agriculture network is supporting the growth of local communities wanting to share the risks of food production with the farmer. 

As part of the Erasmus programme, The A-Team Foundation sponsored a film exploring the shared challenges facing new entrants from the participating countries in their search for land.