Work

Community-supported agriculture in Czechia: Value-based embeddedness and contradictions in the current food regime

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is a mode of production and consumption based on values that are largely absent in the dominant, profit-driven food regime. In this paper, we explore CSA initiatives in Czechia by examining their values as different types of ecological, social, economic and spatial embeddedness. Drawing on qualitative research in Prague, we show how these forms of value-based embeddedness intersect and are constrained by the social, material and institutional contradictions of the dominant food regime. We analyse these contradictions through three overarching thematic clusters of core values underpinning CSA initiatives – (1) land and environmental protection; (2) community building, equity and solidarity and (3) ethical consumption of healthy fresh food. By doing so, we highlight struggles surrounding CSA’s potential to scale up and further develop within political-economic and institutional surroundings shaped by capitalism and post-socialist legacies.

Source: Geoforum

DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104521

Authors: Veronika Nováčková, Michaela Pixová, Christina Plank

Institutions: BOKU University, Södertörn University, Charles University

Language: English

Topic: Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development

Subfield: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Field: Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Responsible consumption and production

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,390