A Potential Sustainable Pathway for Community-Supported Agriculture in Taiwan: The Consumer Perspective in a Farmers’ Market

Punnaros Pisarn, Man-Keun Kim and Shang-Ho Yang
Additional contact information
Punnaros Pisarn: International Master Program of Agriculture, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung City 40227, Taiwan
Shang-Ho Yang: Graduate Institute of Bio-Industry Management, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung City 40227, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-18

Abstract: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become an alternative approach for small-sized farmers in many countries. However, CSA is a somewhat challenging concept in Taiwan because many CSA projects face difficulties and obstacles related to sustainability, so relevant literature is rare. This pilot study investigates a potential CSA program in a farmers’ market to observe whether farmers’ market consumers would like to participate or not. A total of 320 survey responses collected from a farmers’ market were examined by an interval regression model. Results show that respondents are willing to pay and to be a CSA member of the farmers’ market. This study identifies that consumers are willing to share the risks of upfront payment with farmers. The preferred length of the contract means that a compromise is made in order to implement the CSA program. The implications involving a flexible length of contract and the budget should be taken into consideration by farmers, farmers’ market managers, and policymakers for devising promotion strategies, enrolling shareholders, and promoting CSA in Taiwan. Future study should focus on the consumer characteristics and factors affecting their decision to subscribe to CSA.

Keywords: Community Supported Agriculture; farmers’ market; willingness to pay; risk-sharing; Taiwan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/8917/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/8917/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:21:p:8917-:d:435428

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().