A Resilient Model for a Sustainable Contract: Community Supported Agriculture
摘要
Nowadays, the contracts between agricultural producers and their buyers in the agrifood market are often affected by unfair trade practices from the buyers endowed with huge bargaining power. Many studies on the contractual relationship in the agrifood market emphasise the inequality of the relationship and the stronger position of buyers compared to that of small-scale agricultural producers; however, few solutions are proposed to resolve the imbalance. The present paper offers an overview of the challenges faced by agricultural producers in the European Union and the UK. Moreover, the present paper examines the inadequacies of the European regulatory framework in overcoming the unevenness of power relations in contracts and the resulting unfair practices harmful to producers. The paper proposes the adoption of a social and solidarity consumption and production model, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), as a tool for contrasting information and contractual asymmetries and improving agrifood market conditions. The analysis of this model demonstrates that the adoption of the CSA model and the agreements therein adopted have significant positive effect on fair business competitiveness, the revenues of farmers, and market conditions.