szatyorThe “Be part of CSA!” project started in November 2014. Activists, volunteers, farmers, coordinators and educational experts met from four countries (Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and France) in order to synthesize their knowledge and start to work on a training programme for CSA communities. Although CSA movements are a bit different in these four countries, the participants could easily identify some common topics – e.g. empower the members for a more active participation, initiate communication between farmers and consumers or educate consumers about sustainable agriculture – which will have a key role in the informal training programme to be written and tested.

Even if the schedule of the meeting was quite tight, the host organisation (TVE, Hungary) tried to show to their hosts some interesting initiatives in Budapest. So, the first dinner was organised at the place of Szatyor buying community where we could get to know how a grass-root informal group became a social enterprise (website: http://szatyorbolt.hu/rolunk. The vegan dinner was prepared from the products of local farmers and definitely contributed to the good atmosphere.

The next step is to prepare a survey to be widely distributed to the future participants of the CSA training sessions to collect their needs and wishes and identify the key lessons to be included in the informal training programme. Then, it will be time to draft the first educational CSA materials…