MANAGING A CONSUMER-FARMER RELATIONSHIP IN RUSSIAN COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE

Establishing a sustainable consumer-farmer relationship is vital for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Meanwhile this relationship has not been studied in relation to the emerging economy of Russia yet. In our research we use a case-study method applying it to the Russian CSA. The uniqueness of this case is that it is the first officially recognized CSA in Russia established in 2018. Data analysis was carried out using Qualitative Data Analyses Miner Software. The qualitative analyses of Russian CSA allowed us to discover the actual managerial practices that lead to a sustainable CSA consumer-farmer relationship, identifying the modifications of cooperation between producers and consumers. Our study showed that sustainable consumer-farmer relationship in the CSA is based on the healthy and high-quality product (food basket); agroecological and organic farming; 3Rs business model (risk, reward and responsibility sharing); direct communication with consumers (social networking, community involvement, continuous education, etc.), and flexibility of CSA. Such modifications including limitation of the consumer’s involvement in the farm governance; focus on biodynamic agriculture and social entrepreneurship; evolution from the one-farm CSA model to the multiple farms CSA-club model; flexible payments; selling and consulting outside the CSA community led to a more flexible and sustainable CSA model.