CSA survey results: picking brains and veggies

From left, Rachel Garcia, David Fazzino, Phil Loring

Members of community supported agriculture (CSA) organizations in the Fairbanks area love the quality, taste, freshness, and variety of produce they get in the summer season, according to a survey conducted by the UAF Anthropology Department. The one thing they really want more of? Tomatoes!

David Fazzino, assistant professor; Phil Loring, doctoral candidate; and Rachel Garcia, SNRAS graduate student, presented the results of their work May 6.

Fazzino explained that the conventional approach to agriculture is commodity production, whereas alternative agriculture features such methods as farmers’ markets, school gardens, cooperative markets, crop mobs, CSAs, community gardens, and urban agriculture (rooftop gardens).

The trio based their survey on one conducted in 2000 and published in 2002 by E. Paul Durrenberger, anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University. They used the same software program, Anthropac.

They sent 326 surveys and got 122 back, a 37.4 percent return, which Fazzino was very pleased about. They also surveyed the six participating CSA operators, Calypso Farm, Basically Basil, Dogwood Gardens, Rosie Creek Farm, Spinach Creek Farm, and Wild Rose Farm. Garcia said one CSA got 56.1 percent of its members to respond. Smaller CSAs tended to have higher response rates, she said. More surveys were returned when the CSA owner personally handed the document to the member.

“We learned a lot about the population using CSAs in Fairbanks,” Loring said. “They are well educated with a median income of $75,000 to $99,000, and 97 percent of the respondents were white.” The survey participants were predominantly women.

“The unique thing about this is that payment is up front,” Fazzino said. Consumers pay between $375 to $575 for a summer’s worth of veggies, receiving a box of whatever is ripe each week. Most go to the farm or a pickup point to get their produce.

When buyers pay for the food at the beginning of the season the farmer can plan better and rely less on loans, Loring explained.

Members participate at a variety of levels, with some doing work to lower the cost of their share. “The main way they participate is in their kitchens,” Fazzino said. One question the researchers wanted to know was if people changed their eating habits due to CSA involvement. “We found people tended to eat more produce and eat more variety with the CSA experience,” Fazzino said. “People thought it was exciting to experiment with new foods.”

Through the survey, it was discovered that many participants share their food boxes with friends and family.

The reasons people join CSAs lined up perfectly with the Durrenberger study: to get better food, support farmers, help the environment, and get cheaper food.

CSAs are sometimes criticized for not addressing social justice, Loring said. Some even say they are contributing to the global food crisis. “It’s a very potent discourse,” Loring said.

On the up side, Fazzino said CSAs really go along with the notion of true choice. “There is a true transformative capacity when the consumer gets involved,” he said. “CSAs are the gateway drug to alternative food systems. A lot has to do with changing people’s ideas about food systems.”

Loring said CSAs also give the opportunity to create transparency in the actual costs of food production. Garcia commented, “Farmers feel sometimes their prices are too low.”

The researchers will eventually share their results with the growers. “So far they have said the data looks good,” Garcia said.

Further reading:

Loring recommends The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems, by Dana L. Jackson and Laura L. Jackson

Last Frontier Locavores, list of CSAs in Alaska