La coopération amapienne : une relation de travail atypique pour entreprendre ensemble dans un environnement capacitant

The objective of this article is to analyze the specificities and the entrepreneurial issues of the atypical work relationship that constitutes the CSA cooperation initiated between a small farmer and a group of volunteer consumers. Similar to a specific form of agricultural collective entrepreneurship, the creation of a community supported agriculture (CSA) materializes through a contractualized commitment of consumers in the activity of agricultural production and direct sales of local food products. The commitment of these consumers can then be compared to a real workforce for the small farmer, facilitating access to complementary expertise and skills. Our research aims to understand how CSA cooperation, as an atypical work relationship, makes it possible to stimulate, within a territory, collective rural entrepreneurship between a small farmer and a group of volunteer consumers. Based on a qualitative methodology, our results show that this atypical work relationship is characterized by a system of co-production, co-management and learning reciprocity. Furthermore, it promotes, for the rural entrepreneur, the establishment of an enabling environment thanks to the principles of replacement, support, education and accompaniment which the creation of a CSA obeys and which strengthen the capacity for action and empowerment of the small farmer. Thus, the purpose of this atypical work relationship lies in "undertaking together" to, ultimately, co-create social value. This entrepreneurial and altruistic approach to the atypical work relationship enriches the academic literature which has, until now, considered it mainly from the worker's vulnerable situation. We also propose to consider it based on the worker's ability to take part in a collective entrepreneurship project by providing a community with a set of expertise and skills.