Research On The Development Mechanism Of Community Supported Agriculture Under The Participation Of Consumers

With the development of economy and society and people’s attention to food safety,people’s consumption demand for organic and green agricultural products is increasing day by day.However,the mainstream market of organic agricultural products is mixed,and consumers’ concerns about the quality of organic agricultural products at high prices hinder their further consumption.At the same time,community-supported agriculture has gradually entered the public eye as an important form of ecological agriculture,providing consumers with a new organic consumption market.The main feature of community-supported agriculture is "benefit sharing and risk sharing" between producers and consumers.Consumers pay producers production fees in advance in exchange for a certain amount of organic agricultural products.Producers receive benefits and consumption enjoys safety.Agricultural products,and the risk of fluctuations in the final quantity and quality of agricultural products due to external factors shall be borne by both parties.However,looking at the development of community-supported agriculture around the world,the domestic community-supported agriculture model has always been tepid.Many scholars pointed out the current difficulties faced by community-supported agriculture development and proposed development countermeasures,but the discussion of development strategies mainly focuses on government support.This thesis proposes a community-supported agricultural model that considers consumer participation(consumer participation in investment,consumer participation in promotion),and explores its development mechanism.In view of the existence of multiple models of community-supported agriculture,this thesis takes the community-supported agricultural farms(CSA farms),which are widely existing in the community-supported agriculture model,as the research object.First of all,this thesis systematically analyzes the main factors affecting the development of CSA farms by means of the interpretive structural model,and finds that the loss of existing consumers and the weak willingness of potential consumers to participate in CSA farms are the surface direct factors restricting the development of CSA farms,and the lack of farm funds is the deep root factor restricting the development of CSA farms.Among them,due to the lack of capital investment,the farm has not enough investment in organic production,thus affecting the output and quality of agricultural products,and ultimately causing the loss of consumer members.On this basis,this thesis proposes that consumers participate in the investment in farms to alleviate the financial predicament,and explores the development mechanism of CSA farms under consumer investment.In addition,in order to increase the willingness of potential consumers to participate in CSA and expand the scale of CSA farms,this thesis also discusses the development mechanism of CSA farms in which consumers participate in the promotion of agricultural products.The research contents are as follows:Regarding the development mechanism of CSA farms under consumer investment,this thesis builds a cooperation model between CSA farms and employees based on principal-agent theory,and explores the impact of consumer participation in investment on the cooperation mechanism between CSA farms and employees.The study found that,with consumer investment,CSA farms increased their input in organic production,increased employee effort,and improved the quality of organic farm products.This will help the next quarter to increase orders for produce,resulting in higher yields for farms,while employees receive more income.In addition,in the cooperative contract provided by the farm to the employees,both the design of the revenue sharing coefficient and the subsidy for the employee’s work through part of the consumer’s investment amount motivate employees to work harder.Regarding the development mechanism of CSA farms under consumer promotion,this thesis first establishes an evolutionary game model of cooperative strategies between consumers and farms,and analyzes the optimal conditions for consumers to choose to participate in promotion.Then,the promotion cooperation mechanism between consumers and farms is explored by constructing the promotion cooperation model of both parties.The study found that when the amount of fines imposed by consumers on farms for non-standard production is greater than the cost saved by farms’ non-standard production,the strategic choices of both parties tend to be to standardize farm production and consumers to participate in promotion.In the promotion and cooperation model between consumers and farms,the total revenue under the decentralized decision-making aiming at maximizing their respective interests is less than the total revenue under the centralized decision-making aiming at maximizing the total interests of both parties,but under the centralized decision-making Consumers need to put in more promotion efforts.To this end,farms can introduce cost-sharing contracts to encourage consumers to improve their efforts,improve the promotion benefits of farms and consumers,and achieve Pareto improvement of the cooperation mechanism between the two parties.At present,most of the discussions on community-supported agriculture are qualitative analysis and empirical research.From the perspective of consumer participation(consumer investment,consumer promotion),this thesis uses principal-agent theory and game theory to study the development mechanism of CSA farms.The research content enriches relevant research in the field of community-supported agriculture,and can provide theoretical basis and decision-making reference for relevant personnel to improve the development mechanism of community-supported agriculture.