Safe food, green food, good food: Chinese Community Supported Agriculture and the rising middle class

Shi, Yan; Cunwang, Cheng; Peng, Lei; Wen, Ting‐Chi; Merrifield, Caroline

doi:10.1080/14735903.2011.619327

Cited by 113 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…It is widely recognized that the first Chinese farm to adopt the CSA model is Little Donkey Farm [28], located in the northwest of Beijing's Haidian district (while two farms in this study claimed to have established their farm in 2004, they did not adopt the CSA model yet. Little Donkey Farm is the first farm in China to claim having adopted the CSA model.…”

Section: Responses In the Urban Contextmentioning

confidence: 77%

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Alternative Approaches to Food: Community Supported Agriculture in Urban China

Krul

2017

Sustainability

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Abstract:One of the most remarkable features of China's development path is its large-scale and fast-paced urbanization. As cities already accommodate more than half of China's population, new challenges to urban food systems have emerged concurrently. Concerns over environmental degradation and food safety have provoked growing dissatisfaction with China's food regime. Amidst these concerns, the aim of this paper is to study the role of new and alternative approaches to food, focusing in on the question of how community supported agriculture (CSA) can deal with the food-related issues emerging from China's development. The paper adopts Granovetter's notions of social embeddedness to describe CSA's relational role in consumer-farmer dynamics, as well as the structural role within its broader relational context. Empirical data is drawn from surveys distributed among CSA farms, and interviews with key stakeholders in the Chinese CSA movement. The study finds that the model of CSA demonstrates an innovative approach to deal with food safety issues, address sustainability, and operate in an environment where future food demands are most critical. Although the movement's structural embeddedness is bound by several limitations and contradictions, it is argued that the CSA model offers important insights and adds value into ameliorating China's food systems.

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Section: Responses In the Urban Contextmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…The first CSAs have their roots in the United States starting from the 1980s, and empirical studies still heavily draw from European and North-American contexts. The concept began to receive more scholarly attention outside this context with the recent introduction of CSA in China [16,28].…”

Section: Responses In the Urban Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative Approaches to Food: Community Supported Agriculture in Urban China

Krul

2017

Sustainability

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“…There has been much recent academic and practitioner interest in the transformative potential of community food growing initiatives, in both urban and rural environments (Cox et al 2008;Petherick 2010;Saltmarsh et al 2011;Shi et al 2011;Rioufol and Ravenscroft 2012;Ravenscroft et al 2013). This is part of what has been referred to elsewhere as a cultural turn in farming and food production, away from intensive and industrialised farming towards what have become known as alternative food networks (Renting et al 2003;Follett 2009;Wilson 2012;Si et al 2015).…”

Section: Experiencing Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For others, including Shi et al (2011) and Wittman (2009), new forms of agrarian or ecological citizenship have the therapeutic potential to address the ills of agribusiness (Schneider 2015), promote care of the self (Jarosz 2011;Ravenscroft et al 2013) and heal what Wittman (2009) characterises as the metabolic rift that has opened between society and nature. Indeed, it is widely claimed that an ethic of care, allied to a response to food scares (Sempik and Aldridge 2006;Jarosz 2008Jarosz , 2011Shi et al 2011;Qu and Jiao 2013;Si et al 2015) is a strong motive for many people to get involved in CSA and other such projects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their recent work, for example, Pole and Gray (2013, p. 97) suggest that the community aspects of CSA may now-for many people-be ''ancillary'' to securing fresh, local and seasonal produce (which may well have associated health benefits). Galt et al (2015) have similarly questioned who belongs to CSA and why, while in earlier work Galt (2013) also notes (following claims by Groh and McFadden 1997) how CSA farmers continue to subsidise CSA members through failing to take adequate compensation for their labour, a situation not dissimilar from that found in early CSAs in China (Shi et al 2011;Chen 2015b). Indeed, with the availability of virtual platforms such as Taobao and Wechat in China, and Facebook in the West, it is apparent that spatial detachment to growing communities has become a customary practice as few CSA members need to visit the farms from which they secure their food meaning that, for many, CSA need be little more than a consumption decision (Carolan 2011;Chen 2015a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The spaces and times of community farming

Liu

Gilchrist

Taylor³

et al. 2016

Agric Hum Values

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This paper uses a multiple case study approach to researching people's everyday lives and experiences of six community farms and gardens in diverse settings in China and England. We argue that collective understandings of community are bound up in everyday action in particular spaces and times. Successful community farms and gardens are those that are able to provide suitable spaces and times for these actions so that their members can enjoy multiple benefit streams. These benefits are largely universal: in very different situations in both England and China, CSA members make strong connections with the land, the farmers and other members, even in cases where they rarely visit the farms and gardens. This suggests that community farming and gardening initiatives possess multi-dimensional transformational potential. Not only do they offer a buffer against industrialised and remote food systems, but they also represent therapeutic landscapes valued by those who have experienced time spent at or in connection with them. Our findings indicate that-regardless of location or cultural context-these benefits are durable, so that people who have been engaged in multiple activities at a community farm or garden continue to enjoy these benefits long after most of their engagement has ceased.

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The Well&;#x02010;Being of Workers in the Agricultural Sector

Soosai‐Nathan¹,

Fave²

2016

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Positivity and Strengths&;#x02010;Based Approaches at Work

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Safe food, green food, good food: Chinese Community Supported Agriculture and the rising middle class

Cited by 113 publications

References 7 publications

Alternative Approaches to Food: Community Supported Agriculture in Urban China

Alternative Approaches to Food: Community Supported Agriculture in Urban China

The spaces and times of community farming

The Well&;#x02010;Being of Workers in the Agricultural Sector

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