Jilcott Pitts, Stephanie B.2022-06-062022-06-062021-11-23Jilcott Pitts, S., Volpe, L., Sitaker, M., Belarmino, E., Sealey, A., Wang, W., . . . Seguin-Fowler, R. (2022). Offsetting the cost of community-supported agriculture (CSA) for low-income families: Perceptions and experiences of CSA farmers and members. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 37(3), 206-216. doi:10.1017/S1742170521000466http://hdl.handle.net/10342/10611This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is an alternative food marketing model in which community members subscribe to receive regular shares of a farm's harvest. Although CSA has the potential to improve access to fresh produce, certain features of CSA membership may prohibit low-income families from participating. A ‘cost-offset’ CSA (CO-CSA) model provides low-income families with purchasing support with the goal of making CSA more affordable. As a first step toward understanding the potential of CO-CSA to improve access to healthy foods among low-income households, we interviewed 24 CSA farmers and 20 full-pay CSA members about their experiences and perceptions of the cost-offset model and specific mechanisms for offsetting the cost of CSA. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and coded using a thematic approach. Ensuring that healthy food was accessible to everyone, regardless of income level, was a major theme expressed by both farmers and members. In general, CSA farmers and CSA members favored member donations over other mechanisms for funding the CO-CSA. The potential time burden that could affect CSA farmers when administering a cost-offset was a commonly-mentioned barrier. Future research should investigate various CO-CSA operational models in order to determine which models are most economically viable and sustainable.Barriers and facilitators to subsidizing costcost-offset community-supported agriculturefruits, vegetablessustainabilityArticle10.1017/S1742170521000466