Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) can improve and maintain
employee's long term health. View the studies below to learn more
from CSA research conducted at the University of Kentucky
In this paper University of Kentucky agricultural economists study the impact of CSA on diet-related medical expenses for a UK workplace pilot program in 2015 and 2016. Results showed that employees with higher than average diet-related medical expenses had significantly lower expenses in the 12 months following the CSA program. The researchers suggest a return on investment from employer-sponsored CSA voucher programs.
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Citation:
Rossi, Jairus J., and Timothy A. Woods, (2018), “Diet Related Medical Expenditure Impacts of a CSA Voucher Program,” Agricultural Economic Staff Paper #497.
Diet-Related Medical Expenditure Impacts of a CSA Voucher Program
This study evaluated the behavior change of University of Kentucky employees enrolled in an employer-sponsored CSA voucher program. Survey data showed that CSA was a strong factor to encourage participants to cook more at home, eat less processed food, and increase daily servings of fruits and vegetables.
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Citation:
Rossi, Jairus J., Timothy A. Woods, and James E. Allen IV (2017), “Impacts of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Voucher Program on Food Lifestyle Behaviors: Evidence from an Employer-Sponsored Pilot Program," Sustainability, 1543, August 2017. doi:10.3390/su9091543
Impacts of a CSA Voucher Program on Food Lifestyle Behaviors: Evidence from an Employer-Sponsored Pilot Program
CSA Shareholder Food Lifestyle Behaviors: A Comparison Across Consumer Groups
For this study researchers evaluated four distinctly different consumers groups, which included the average Kentucky consumer, University of Kentucky Health and Wellness employees, local food cooperative members, and CSA shareholders, to determine what influenced their food purchasing choices and how it impacted their health. They found that CSA members display significant absolute differences to other groups along numerous indicators related to consuming fresh produce, eating out less, interest in nutrition, and in general assessments of health.
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Citation:
Rossi, Jairus J., James E. Allen IV, Timothy A. Woods, and Alison F. Davis (2017), “CSA shareholder food lifestyle behaviors: a comparison across consumer groups," Journal of Agriculture and Human Values, February 2017. doi: 10.1007/s10460-017-9779-7
Do Community Supported Agriculture Programmes Encourage Change to Food Lifestyle Behaviours and Health Outcomes? New Evidence from Shareholders
The researchers distributed a CSA survey to members of three different CSA programs in the Lexington, KY area. The results strongly suggest that CSA has the potential to positively impact members food lifestyle behaviours and those participants that start CSA in poor health exhibit the most change overall.
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Citation:
Allen, James, IV, Jairus Rossi, Timothy Woods, Alison Davis, (2016) “Do community supported agriculture programmes encourage change to food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes? New evidence from shareholders,” International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, doi: 10.1080/14735903.2016.1177866.