The issue of trust is crucial in a solidarity economy partnership where much relies on goodwill
and there are no strong mechanisms of enforcement. The consumers start with investing in an
idea that is new to them. They trust the farmers to fulfil their obligations. Interestingly they
hardly make use of the possibility to thoroughly check if the farmers are keeping their end of
the promise. A former core-group member testified that "it is rather difficult to check on the
producer. One has to rely more on trust. Of course we could always make an unexpected visit,
but I don't think it ever happened." 89.7 % of the respondents trust the farmers they are
partners with and 69.4 % trust CRIES. It is interesting to observe that 5.2 % of the respondents
claim not to trust the farmer, but a much higher percentage (16.7 %) claim not to trust CRIES.
This may be explained by the fact that the partners of Farmer 1 are not familiar with the NGO
because the CSA is now being managed only by the farmer. There is a relatively high percentage
(57.9 %) of respondents who would trust the farmer even if no organization would be involved in
the partnership, but 60 % admit that their level of trust in the partnership is higher because a
known organization is involved.