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- Convenors:
-
Roman Lenz
(University of Applied Sciences)
Peter Volz (Research institution Die Agronauten)
- Stream:
- Food
- Location:
- A220
Short Abstract:
Community Supported Agriculture and other forms of joint agriculture between farmers and citizens are a fast growing area. It ranges from ordering seasonal as well as regional food from surrounding farms and using new distribution services, and goes far as to citizen farming activities.
Long Abstract:
Cooperation as well as education in food issues are in a miserable situation. All forms of social farming as cooperation between producers and consumers could help, but need best pracice examples and well elaborated concepts. In this panel we like to present and discuss approaches, which e. g. use Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) or other (Urban) Gardening and collaboration concepts e.g. citican share holders for regional supply networks etc.. Besides clear contracts between producer/farmer and consumer/citizen in various forms, also the number of members in non-governmental organizations like Slow Food are increasing, and give additional evidence that agriculture and its products as well as services should come closer to the society and vice versa! We explicitly welcome researchers as well as practitioners working on farming, nutrition and education also in a broader more contextual perspective. We want to highlight, what could be a basis for sustainable treaties between producers and consumers, and what could remain Utopian - but might still stimulate the new development processes!
Accepted papers:
Session 1Peter Volz (Research institution Die Agronauten)
Paper short abstract:
I would like to give an overview of the dynamic concept of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Europe. This enables us to understand various approaches, different characteristics and diffusion of CSA.
Paper long abstract:
In CSA, consumers and producers form a solidarity-based partnership in which risks and benefits of food production are shared. In a typical CSA scheme, all partners share the cost of production before the farming season and receive their share of fresh, regional produce at the time of harvest. By doing this, they liberate the food supply chain of market forces. As such, CSA is not only an agricultural approach but an example of an economic concept based on short cycles, personal trust, transparency and solidarity alternative which offers an alternative to dominant economic paradigms.
The high demand for such schemes is proven by the extremely dynamic development of CSA in many European countries. In Germany, their number has doubled in the last 3 years and is expected to double again in the coming year. In France, where the first CSA was founded in 2001, an estimated 2000-3000 CSAs are operating at present. Similar growth rates can be observed in various other European countries.
Being a new movement that is characterized by a great diversity of organizational and legal forms an overview of the CSA movement in Europe is much needed. Citizens, policy makers and activists alike can benefit from insights in this powerful emerging movement.
Olga Orlic (Institute for Anthropological Research)
Paper short abstract:
Community-supported agriculture and urban gardening are becoming more and more popular in Croatia. People get involved in such a practice due to various and different reasons. Some are aware of the utopian nature of their activity, while others point to its exclusionary features.
Paper long abstract:
Community-supported agriculture and urban gardening are introduced in Croatia by growing number of practitioners in various regions and cities. As the results of a research reveal, the reasons of actors' engagement in such practice vary - from existential needs in the times of crisis for some to the alter-globalization activism for the others. Whatever the reasons for such practices are, CSA represents just a small market niche, while the urban gardening has not been perceived as a serious threat to the market. However, the movements are becoming more and more popular, despite (or precisely because of) the fact that they are both perceived as more or less utopian. As Maskalan noticed, every modern utopia, if wanted to be taken seriously, has to take into account benefits for the whole globe (Maskalan 2009: 510). This kind of utopia is called the ecological one or ecotopia (as Ernest Callenbach named the imaginary state whose main concern was ecology (Callenbach, 1975)). Constant care about the ecology makes CSA and urban gardening perfect building blocks for constructing such contemporary ecotopia. However, one has to take into account the ambiguous position CSA and urban gardening have - on the one hand they try to provide alternative to the current agricultural and economic models, and on the other they try to become more widespread, thus becoming less alternative. Beside that, CSA has the additional label of being a "class thing". This could prove to be a danger for these emerging utopias, giving them an exclusionary feature.
Werner Rolf (Technical University of Munich)
Paper short abstract:
In the last years the valorisation of local food products has been focus of many initiatives. This presentation will focus on positive effects of this approach from the landscape perspective.
Paper long abstract:
Local food has been focus of many initiatives as an alternative to the conventional food system, focusing on rural development as well as to meet the growing demand on the consumer side for more authentic and natural lifestyles. Hence local food has been a focus for economists and for social and cultural science. Besides local food products may have many positive effects on the landscape scale and on landscape planning processes. Again these effects offer potentials to strengthen the relationship between producers and consumers. This presentation will exemplary point out some of these like 1) the protection of natural resources and nature conservation, 2) the maintenance of cultural landscapes as heritage, for identity and recreation and 3) the development of networks and partnerships for integrated planning processes, capacity building and governance.
Furthermore it will be pointed out how these topics can be part of a curriculum for environmental planning.
Julien Vuilleumier (University of Neuchâtel)
Paper short abstract:
As local contract farming initiatives are based on a direct relationship between farmers and citizen, we will discuss how this proximity is actually settled and performed. By describing the negotiation processes related to that partnership, we will question their food system’s transformation potential.
Paper long abstract:
Based on ethnographic descriptions of three local contract farming initiatives (CSA) in French speaking Switzerland, our communication aims to discuss how these networks organise and mobilise the producers - consumers relationship. Beyond narratives that present the proximity and the partnership as the core of their system, how is this « direct » relationship settled and performed by the actors through actual practices? Following a diachronic approach of the initiatives' careers and an embedded position of participant observation, we have pointed out some representation and negotiation mechanisms operating with this relationship. The construction of the proximity and of the belonging to an (imagined) community through different mediations (such as public events, website, newsletter or volunteer work) is a central issue for the creation and the management of these initiatives. This allows an articulation between activism and commercial imperatives that reveals the hybridity of these associations, which are both social movements and food supply chains. More specifically, they implement dialogical processes for the redefinition of food quality conventions (e.g. production modes, aesthetics, taste, social conditions, nutritional aspects) but also of the exchange regulation and trust between the partners. These negotiations are operated within the frame of a community but also with references and connections to wider movements of critical consumption and agriculture (re-)politicisation. In this way their transformation potential of local food systems is much more related to micro-ruptures, adjustments and connections within the revised producers - consumers relationship than to radical changes, this reveals also some of their underlying opportunities, tensions and limits.
Roman Lenz (University of Applied Sciences) Peter Volz (Research institution Die Agronauten)
Paper short abstract:
The Regionalwert AG has successfully managed to gain the support of regional residents who are now investors. It can serve as an inspiration for those interested in helping to foster a sustainable transformation in regional agriculture.
Paper long abstract:
The Regionalwert AG (RWAG) was founded in 2006 near Freiburg, southwest Germany, by agriculturalist Christian Hiss.
It was conceptualised as a citizen shareholder corporation in which people could invest in small and medium sized (SME) socio-ecological enterprises in the region, mainly in the agriculture and food sector. Access to land is facilitated for new entrants to farming, and farm succession can be secured,
thereby helping to maintain the region's agriculture and thus its characteristic landscape. But there is much more: the RWAG aims to build up a network of enterprises to establish a sustainable food supply chain and regional added value.
Its concept has successfully managed to gain the support of regional residents who are now investors. It can serve as an inspiration for those interested in helping to foster a sustainable transformation in regional agriculture (addressing ethical financing, public support, economy of solidarity).