Helping Farmers with Continuation Planning for Cost-Offset Community Supported Agriculture to Low-Income Families

To improve low-income families’ access to fresh local produce, some farmers offer subsidized or “cost-offset” community supported agriculture (CO-CSA) shares. We evaluated a structured planning and implementation process conducted during the final intervention year of the Farm Fresh Foods for Healthy Kids (F3HK) study, which aimed to help participating farmers (N=12) to sustain a CO-CSA program after study funding ended. The process included training webinars, planning tools to develop CO-CSA continuation funding and recruitment strategies, regional coach­ing teams to provide technical assistance, and peri­odic group conference calls to facilitate shared learning among F3HK farmers. Our evaluation explored the content of farmers’ CO-CSA contin­u­ation plans, their experiences during implementa­tion, their opinions about the planning process, and their future plans regarding their CO-CSA. We found that F3HK farmers used diverse methods to plan, recruit, and raise funds, with each farm adapt­ing strategies to fit their local conditions and farm business. Many farmers found success with word-of-mouth advertising and CSA member donations. Yet lack of farm resources—time, money, and ex­pertise—was a continual barrier to moving for­ward. As with full price CSAs, reciprocity was a key factor: farmers needed to consider the needs and preferences of low-income consumers, and CO-CSA members needed to understand their financial responsibility to the farmer. In general, F3HK farmers appreciated the continuation planning pro­cess, but expressed a desire for more technical assistance with grant writing. Farmers were com­mitted to the success of the CO-CSA continuation planning process, and most intended to continue the CO-CSA the following year.