Challenges of Alternative Food Initiatives in India: A Case of Community Supported Agriculture Confarm, Telangana

Alternative food initiatives have been studied in diverse regional contexts and their impact on the local food system. The discussion on alternative food initiatives is largely dominated by contributions from American and European contexts where the dominant capitalistic mode of production and consumption is challenged. However, reflecting on the intricacies of the Global South context like India, and the understanding of alternative food initiatives connotation towards creating an alternate impact on the food system is limited. Though India has been a champion of food sovereignty movement, translating the movement into alternative food initiatives have been limited in the Indian context. This study investigates a particular case of community supported agriculture, 'ConFarm', based in Telangana, to understand the functioning of community supported agriculture and challenges faced by the initiative. Structured and semi-structured interview schedules were used for the study. The key respondents of the study were the farmers and consumers who are associated with the network and the Deccan Development Society staff members under which the network operates. The study concluded that the main idea behind the network was to bring a 'producer-consumer partnership' supporting the organic and dryland farmers. This partnership is a transactional relationship and a fundamental aspect of the initiative's success, fostering trust and understanding between producers and consumers. The network has revived a relationship between producers and consumers based on trust and understanding however, during the pandemic there was a decrease in the operations of the network due to lockdown restrictions on transportation resulting in a sharp decline in the number of consumers and a decrease in orders. ConFarm still needs to work on maintaining the consumer base due to lower shelf life, lack of immediate access to the products, lack of staff to manage the network efficiently, and poor packaging of the products.