Social Finance and Agricultural Funding

Short food supply chains (SFSCs), especially community-supported agriculture systems, often involve communities in which producers and buyers know each other personally. In the last two decades, innovative technologies have created market platforms that aid short food supply chains. The platform-supported operation is a modern method of micro-farm production based on traditional methods. Moreover, novel info-communication technologies provide online spaces as they build and nurture personal relationships and facilitate alternative forms of funding. In this study, we investigate the use of personal relationship characteristics in innovative financing techniques. First, we formulate a theoretical concept to better understand the economic value added by actors in SFSCs and their finance. In our approach, we develop the concepts of the entrepreneurial and integrative roles, and we explain how they support financing. Second, we present examples that reveal how new crowdfunding techniques play these roles in typical funding situations, such as start-up funding, working capital financing, and investment loans. The study contributes to the social finance literature by showing that direct information sharing in the short supply chains creates value, not only for the customers but the investors as well.