Communication in community-supported agriculture

The concept of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has recently become increasingly popular in Austria, as it offers the significant advantage of building direct bridges between consumers and food producers. Communication between the individual players is crucial in this regard. This paper deals with the key factors in communication between farmers and members of a CSA that enable the CSA to exist sustainably. A comprehensive literature review of German and English-language sources sheds light on communication within CSAs and identifies the key factors involved. Based on the research, a guided interview was developed, which was used to interview three CSA farms currently in the process of being established. In addition, the farmers' self-assessment was used to analyse the current communication situation at the farms based on success factors for communication. By combining the results, the most important factors for communication were identified and concrete suggestions for improvement were developed for the CSA farms.