An Overview Of Our Solution
We believe in the power of communities to shift agriculture’s perspective to new levels of sustainability, creating relations of trust between family farmers and consumers, sharing risks and the harvest equally. In order to be parte of a community supported agriculture CSA, one must change the role of consumer to become a co-farmer. Farmers presents all cost and necessities to produce respecting the principles of agroecology in order to have a nutritious and balanced harvest to families who will consume during a year. In the other hand, co-farmers agree to share all costs and to support the organization of the community, which involves managing communication, finances and integration. In the capital of Brazil we are more than 20 CSA financing all supplies to produce locally agroecological food, respecting biodiversity and innovating in a new economic paradigm.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Urban
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: South America
General Information
Organization type
Sin fines de lucro/No Gubernamental
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Urban/Built Environment
Population impacted
2.000 people
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
500 ha
Production quantity
70.000.000 kilos
People employed
100
Solution
Describe your solution
We create communities integrating people in rural and in urban areas.
Farmers present their costs of production and their necessities. Consumers are invited to be involved with a whole year of production passing through onus and bonus together. They will be part of a relationship of trust, which means that farmers will not sale anymore, but have financial support directly from who will be nourished by their hands.
There is no waste of food. everything what is planted will have a destination.
Families who are co-farmers are much more aware of the production, the seasonalities and how to consume the harvest with no waste.
www.csabrasilia.wordpress.com
www.csabrasil.org
Implementation
Describe your implementation
1. Course of Community Supported Agriculture to farmers and consumers. 40h
2. Diagnosis of production with family farmers.
3. Gathering consumers interested in be parte of a CSA.
4. Orientation about principles of CSA and how manage their own community.
5. Supporting evaluation and integration of communitites in the same region.
- Specific activities and/or specifically what your solution does to address the identified problems above in the Context Analysis section
- How you ensured your solution was adopted and promoted change in human activities
- Enabling conditions
- Key success factors
- Any obstacles and how you overcame them
External connections
CSA Brasil
Ministério da Agricultura, Desenvolvimento Agrario, Desenvolvimento Social.
WWF
FEPECS
Matres Socioambiental
Mutirão Agroflorestal
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
Family farmers has a great difficulty to comercialize and guarantee that will not have wast of energy, time and specially the harvest.
Many agroecological farmers find great difficulty to manage their farms considering climate changes and have the pressure to attend market to attend expectations of quality and quantity that sometimes not correspond to their realities.
Small family farmers have no funds or initial capital to invest in equipments and other type of supplies and can't enrich their productions because of this.
In the other hand, organic consumers find big difficulty in Brazil to access organic food with fair prices and good quality near by their houses. The majority of organic consumers would like to have a closer relationship with a farmer and understand seasonalities aspects of agroecological production, but have no clue how to do it.
Describe the context in which you are operating
We are operating in different areas of Cerrado in Brazil, which is the most impacted biome in the country by agrobusiness. It is also the hot spot of biodiversity programms supported by many international organizations and the govern of Brazil. Communities supported agriculture, however, can be applied in any place of the world. Its only necessary to have farmers and consumers connected and follow the principles to create relationships of trust.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
How did you improve biodiversity and/or positively impact the local environment? Please be specific and include methodology where relevant (1000 characters max.)
Language(s)
Portuguese
Water
Saving Tons of litters of water from agrotoxic. Planting trees near by rivers and impacted areas by agrobusiness.
Food Security/Nutrition
More than 2.000 consumers of organic food in the city.
Economic/Sustainable Development
More than 500.000 dollars flowing directly from co-farmers to farmers in local economy with 1 year of guarantee of compromise in communities.
Climate
Local spots to deliver the harvest near by co-farmers houses enagaging people to walk to collect their products. Less carbon with less transporting food directly from land to one single spot in urban area.
Sustainability
The solution is sustainable by it self. The main purpose is to connect farms and co-farmers to solve their own necessities of financing and producing food. To implement one CSA many volunteers (farmers and co-farmers) invest their time and this the initial income necessary to start a movement. Afterward, the CSAs help new CSA to born in a abundant flow of abundance. However, to help a new CSA in a new region, it would be helpful to invest in gather farmers and consumers in workshops to share the concepts and examples from CSA with more experience.
Return on investment
To support 20 communities in Brasilia, we had volunteer work of many collaborators. However, with one project supported by the local government we could dedicate special attention to 12 farmers with special needs. The project included a course to 30 farmers, diagnoses of the production, inviting consumers to become co-farmers and orientation to organize their communities. The project cost 10.000 dollars and had the return of 200.000 dollars committed in one year of financing directly by co-farmers to farmers.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
1. It is possible to implement this solution in anywhere where there are farmers and people to consume food.
2. To training farmers, it is necessary at least 1 worksop of 30 hours which cost can vary from 10.000 dollars to 20.000 dollars.
3. The diagnosis of the production it is not mandatory, however it is recommended. The costs can vary. It is recommended to use local resources with agroecological knowledge.
4. To gathering consumers to become co-farmers there is no cost involve, if there is volunteers (other co-farmers) that can contribute with this. There is plenty of informatio not the web and we can help by Skype and other virtually facilities.