| Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has the potential for 'closing the distance gap'. CSA farms are local organizations of food producers and consumers in which direct relationships reduce physical and social distances. Although the overall distance from field to family decreases through CSA, the travelling distance to obtain food increases for consumers. For this reason, the primary question to be addressed within this thesis is whether CSA can bring consumers closer to producers in spite of various inconveniences felt by CSA participants. The concept of distance decay is used to develop hypotheses regarding the effect of distance. The research questions and hypotheses are applied to one CSA farm in western Michigan. Surveys and phone interviews of CSA members and farmers are used to understand the reasons for joining, for participating, and for leaving CSA.;Findings indicate distance to be strongly related to the level of active participation as well as consumer retention. Within this study, a distance of 25 miles is found to represent the maximum distance for consumers to travel to CSA farms. Overall, results indicate that CSA in practice reduces the physical and social distance between growers and consumers, thus reaching the conceptual potential of 'closing the distance gap'. |
