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Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) gained increasing attention and experienced rapid growth in the US and Western Europe over the past 25 years as a special form of direct marketing where producers and consumers form an alliance in a relationship based on mutual trust, openness, shared risk and shared rewards. This paper provides a general background on the spread of CSA farming worldwide and through case studies focuses on the development, state and opportunity of CSA in Hungary. As early adopters and leaders of the paradigm change in the agro-food sector, successful Hungarian CSA growers are often challenged as they are following not-yet-walked paths, but they have certain attributes which make them distinctive compared with other farmers and enable them to overcome difficulties.

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Zoltán Dezsény is a doctorate student at Szent István University, Hungary. He holds MSc degrees in International Agricultural Development (2013) and Agronomy (2009). He is a part time colleague of the Hungarian Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and manages a small-scale organic vegetable farm with his wife since 2014.

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