Community-supported agriculture has its earliest history in Japan. In the 1950s and 1960s the country was undergoing rapid industrialisation that resulted in environmental destruction and pollution-related disease. The idea of teikei (literally meaning “cooperation” or “link-up”) emerged in the 1960s as a way of establishing an alternative system. Underpinned by 10 principles, teikei captures the idea that producing and consuming food are a joint operation and the shared responsibility of both growers and eaters. Although community-supported agriculture developed separately in Europe and North America (closely associated with the biodynamic farming movement and heavily influenced by Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy), many of the principles of teikei are also implicit in these Western enterprises.