Community-supported agriculture and allotment gardens as collective forms of food production – Investigating the effect of social capital on perceived benefits
本研究首次实证调查瑞士集体食物生产中社会资本对成员感知效益的影响，发现社会资本与感知效益显著正相关，但组织形式和性别无差异。
Both community-supported agriculture and allotment gardens are collective forms of food production in which members collaborate to provide common goods and services. In addition to improving food self-sufficiency, contributing to members' health and well-being and investing in education and skill development, generating social capital is a major motivational factor for people engaging in collective food production . This is the first study to empirically investigate the effects of social capital on the perceived benefits of members engaged in collective food production in Switzerland. As institutionalised collective and democratic decision-making is central to collective food production, we also considered members’ decision-making capacity to be a determinant of perceived benefits, as well as the relationship between decision-making capacity and social capital. For the empirical analyses, we used data from an online survey of members engaged in collective food production (N = 500) conducted in December 2022 and January 2023. We tested for group differences between community-supported agriculture and allotment gardens and between females and males by separately using multivariate analysis of variance and covariance and structural equation modelling . Our results consistently indicated that the relationship between social capital and perceived benefits was statistically significantly positive. However, we found no effect differences between organisational forms and gender. By contrast, we found only marginal evidence that decision-making capacity negatively affects perceived benefits. As social capital plays a vital role in the success of collective food production, it should be strengthened by organising informal activities, such as parties or art exhibitions.