The term Community Supported Agriculture was coined during the 1980s in the United States, however the arrangement, where the farmers asked their regular customers to pay a share of the farm’s annual production expenses in exchange for a weekly share of the produce (Henderson & Van En 2007), had been in existence in Europe and Japan several decades earlier. 

In Victoria, the concept of CSA became better known through the popular documentary film The Real Dirt on Farmer John.  This film tells the story of Farmer John and his small farm in Illinois, where conversion to Biodynamic Farming and setting up a CSA resurrected his farm.  The concept was then further publicized through numerous articles and stories in the local media about the documentary and CSA more broadly (for eg. Organic Gardener Magazine May/June 2008).

Buying direct from farms is not new to Victorians, as seen in the growth of farmers’ markets in recent years, but having an ongoing commitment to a farmer is.   This has meant that in the local context a number of direct buying relationships between food consumers and farmers have been characterised by shorter payment cycles, such as fortnightly payments, rather than full payment at the start of the season (as typical of CSA).  So it will be interesting  to see if this trend will continue as the concept of CSA becomes better known in Victoria and to see if CSAs will take off in Australia as it has in the US.  With 400 CSAs in 1993 and 12,549 in 2007 (USDA 2007), there is also a lot we can glean from the US experience.