Evaluating the impact of community supported agriculture

Provenance is now working with the Soil Association to evaluate the impact of community supported agriculture and related enterprises, through a phased approach of surveys (of CSAs, their members, and selected non-members), follow-up telephone interviews, and visits to five enterprises to carry out detailed case studies.

The survey and interview phases will be guided by the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach framework, ensuring a comprehensive assessment of CSAs and their members across the full range of social, human, physical, financial and natural capital / assets. The case studies will follow the more structured IDEA method, which can be repeated by the CSAs to measure future progress across economic, environmental and social criteria.

The results will be used to compile a full final report, summary report, and targeted factsheets for specific audiences – policymakers, funders, the media, CSA participants. We will also be providing feedback to individual CSAs on the findings from their members and local non-members (without any identification of individuals), which should be useful in guiding their future development.

We are carrying out this evaluation of the impact of CSA for the Soil Association’s CSA support work under the National Lottery funded Making Local Food Work programme.

We will shortly be contacting CSAs and their members across England to invite them to take part in our initial surveys. If you are involved with a CSA and would like to participate, please contact us.