What Prohibit CSA Membership Renewals? Identifying Barriers of CSA Participation

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) serves as platform for local producers, especially for small size farms, to sell local fresh products directly to local residents. Joining CSA will benefit the local economy as well as the local agriculture. Although CSA is widely accepted across the United States, the amount of CSA membership is still very low. Some people argue that the CSA membership is prevented by lack of choices in variety of products, or inconvenience of picking-up. In this study, we apply quantitative methods to identifying barriers that prohibit CSA participation or factors affecting unsubscribe of the CSA membership. We also compare characteristics and food perception of different consumers group (non-CSA members, previous CSA members and current CSA members). Based on the 780 responses collected from a consumer survey at the national level, our results show that only 6% of the total sample is current CSA members. The top two reasons for unsubscribing of the CSA membership are that they prefer farmer’s market and not cooking at home. On the other hand, the top two important factors for participation in CSA are supporting local and family farms.