AF20010 - STUDY OF COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE IN ALBERTA 2019

Project Background

Alberta Agriculture and Forestry (AF) works with producers, food processors, and entrepreneurs to capture opportunities for local market expansion through AF Marketing Unit . A growing number of producers sell Local Food to Albertans through various direct-to-consumer market channels such as farmers’ markets, u-picks, on-farm stores, roadside stands, off-site farm stores, community supported agriculture (CSA), food basket programs, grower cooperatives, as well as local restaurants that source food ingredients direct from Alberta producers. In 2013, AF commissioned a CSA study in which 44 CSA farms in Alberta were identified through a broad search. However, the 2016 Census of Agriculture indicates that there are 119 Alberta farms marketing through CSA. The variations of the CSA value proposition and marketing strategy for producers have been widened over the years. Some producers have used the traditional CSA model as a market entry point for local foods distribution and then graduated to other business models as scale allowed. Others have adapted the traditional CSA model to CSA-like models that better accommodate single or multi-farm scale economies.

Project Objectives

The results of the Project will enable AF to describe the current use of the CSA business model, estimate the value of food marketed through CSA in Alberta, assess the growth potential of CSA and identify reasons for adoption of multi-farm CSA as a marketing strategy. This Project is anticipated to provide rich detail about membership turnover, opportunities for growth, price per share, types of products provided, marketing and production risk, business longevity, and market diversification. AF will learn how CSA as an agricultural innovation to address aggregation and distribution challenges faced by the local food producers and the role of the CSA model in local food business/farming start-ups.