Exploring the synergy between Community Supported Agriculture and agroforestry: Institutional innovation from smallholders in a brazilian rural settlement

Agroforestry Systems (AFS) are among the productive systems which have the potential of conciliation between food production, conservation of ecosystem services and even recovery of degraded areas. Several studies have helped to reduce uncertainty regarding the economic performance of these productive systems. However, many financial viability studies of AFS assume that farmers will have access both to finance and to market outlets to dispose of all produce, unrealistic assumptions for smallholders, especially in agrarian reform settlements. In addition, the time for AFS to pay for themselves could be a barrier to the adoption of this type of system by smallholders. This paper aims to show how an institutional innovation for marketing fresh food – such as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) – can influence positively the adoption of agroforestry systems by smallholders. The research is based on a case study of an agroecological producer association in a Brazilian agrarian reform settlement and on a financial viability analysis of one AFS, considering two marketing outlet scenarios. The main contribution of this paper is to discuss the potentialities of the CSA marketing arrangement for smallholders outside the North American and European contexts, and within the agroforestry farming environment. In this arrangement, the farmer does not have to prioritize few and specific species because of their high commercial value. Therefore, it can foster a more systemic and ecological approach to farming. The financial indicators show that the most pessimistic CSA scenario is still superior to the most optimistic organic market scenario, in the context of marketing agroforestry products in the Brazilian Federal District. The economic security resulting from this institutional innovation underscores the potential for synergy between agroforestry systems and CSAs.