Where does our food come from? The Community Support Agriculture (CSA) model provides direct answers to this crucial question. A CSA is a community-based organization of food producers and consumers, promoting an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture.
«One of the most important elements of CSA is the risk sharing» says Jocelyn Parot, General Secretary of Urgenci, DYNAVERSITY partner. Urgenci is the international network of Community Supported Agriculture, and works to promote alliances between food producers and consumers both at local and international level.
«The idea – explains Parot – is that the consumers are not passive users: they take action, committing themselves and building a direct relationship with the local producers. They pre-pay a share of the harvest, and in exchange they really want to make sure the food is being produced in a sustainable way. On the other hand, farmers commit themselves to produce their food in an agroecological way. That’s how producers and consumers get along and build mutual trust».
The Covid-19 pandemic, with its tragic impacts, gave also the opportunity to the CSA model to prove its efficacy.
«The CSAs have been active all along the pandemic, and they really managed to provide relief and support not only to the usual network of consumers and farmers, but also to marginalized populations. This gave the opportunity to think of resilience not just as an abstract word, but really enacting it on the field», Parot says.
Within the DYNAVERSITY project, Urgenci conducted a large-scale survey, which involved more than 320 groups or networks worldwide
«We didn’t have the chance, until this project, to actually map the existing experiences or the existing initiatives in our movement – concludes Parot. – So DYNAVERSITY was a big opportunity for us to conduct an in-depth research, to understand what is actually happening on the fields at grassroots’ level.»
Watch here the complete interview to Jocelyn Parot, General Secretary of Urgenci:
Video production: Anna Violato
