Community-supported agriculture (CSA) originated in Japan (as “Teikei”, which means partnership), and in Switzerland independently from each other in the 1970s [1]. Since then, it has been propagated worldwide, and it can be found in many different forms and under various names. There is no fixed way of doing CSA. Still, the international CSA network URGENCI defines it as: “a framework to inspire communities to work together with their local farmers, provide mutual benefits and reconnect people to the land where their food is grown” [2].

CSA is an association between farmers or gardeners and private households, in which the needs of everyone – including the environment – are respected.  The members of this closed economic circle do not pay for individual food items, but rather for the upkeep and running of the agricultural business. In return, they receive a share of the harvest, which is usually provided to them on a weekly basis. This way of operating results, not only in the sharing of costs, but also the responsibilities and risks between the farmers and members, having benefits for both sides.

Small-scale, regional and sustainable agriculture are supported and furthered through these practices. CSA gives the farmers financial and planning security, besides assuring a fair wage for them [3, 4]. The financial security gives the farmers more flexibility and room for maneuver to try out new or traditional as well as more sustainable and organic ways of farming [3]. The time and money for trying out these practices often lack in conventional farming. In conventional agriculture, farmers also tend to concentrate on a small number of crops, vegetables or fruits they specialize in, to maximize efficiency. By implementing CSA, the farmers can grow a large range of products to satisfy the members of the association with a variety of products each week [3]. This increases diversity, which also has positive implications for the soil and local fauna. Furthermore, food wastage is reduced, as products that do not meet market standards are still distributed to and consumed by the members [3, 5]. The members receive fresh, regional, nutritious produce and the benefit of knowing where their food come from.  

There are different ways in which CSAs operate. Most commonly the farmers calculate the expenses for the year, based on the produce the members would like them to grow [3]. Then, either the costs are split evenly between all members in terms of a monthly membership fee, or, at a bidding round, each member can suggest what they could pay for the year. If after the bidding round not the whole costs are covered, the bidding round is done again, until they are [3]. The second option is based on the solidarity principal, as those, who can afford to, pay more, and those, who cannot, pay less. This way no one is excluded based on their financial situation.

Another aspect of CSA is the involvement of the members in the running of the farm. This is done to a varying extent at different CSA farms. For instance, members can either help out with the harvest, during planting events, or in the organization of food pick-ups. This way the consumer turns into a prosumer – a combination of consumer and producer. The idea behind this is that people do not only support the local farmer, but also experience where their food comes from. This puts the value back in the food, and it makes people think more about what they buy and eat. Therefore, there is a great educational value in CSA too.

There are many success stories of CSAs worldwide. But a relevant example, that shines a light on the problems some CSA farmers experience, is the study case by Ostrom in 2007 [4] on over 20 CSA farms in the Minneapolis and Madison area (USA). The study showed that especially the community idea behind CSA – farmers and members united as a community, sharing not only the benefits but also risks of farming – is often difficult to develop, and expectations of farmers and members tend to diverge. Since the initiative comes from the farmers in most cases, there is often a struggle to find members or to keep them involved [4]. The consequence of this is that farmers might orient the fees on what the members are willing to pay, rather than on what they really need to run the farm with fair wages and the other benefits that are meant to come with running a CSA [4]. Still, farmers, who can overcome the divergent expectations between themselves and members, and that can induce member engagement, are successful [4].

Notwithstanding, it has to be noted that this study conducted by Ostrom (2007) cannot be generalized, as it was conducted in one region [4]. A study on several CSAs in Germany, for example, found that most CSA members were motivated and engaged in farm activities [5]. Furthermore, the assessment conducted by Ostrom in 2007 revealed that members, who really engage with the CSA practices, experience a lifestyle shift, as they change their shopping behavior, cook healthier and with more variety [4]. This led the author to conclude that “part of the power of CSA as social movement lies with its ability to gradually forge a new understanding of what it means to eat” [4]. A concept that, therefore, bears ecological and social transformative potential.

If you would also like to change the way you eat and support local farmers, you can find information on CSAs around Bayreuth and how to get involved here. In Germany CSA is organized in the Netzwerk Solidarische Landwirtschaft , currently there are 368 CSA farms registered on their website [6].

References:

Where not otherwise indicated: https://www.solidarische-landwirtschaft.org/das-konzept

[1] https://urgenci.net/csa-history/ (last accessed 23.09.2021)

[2] https://urgenci.net/about-urgenci/ (last accessed 23.09.2021)

[3] Simpfendörfer C. (2017) Solidarische Landwirtschaft: Verbraucher gestalten Land(wirt)schaft. In: Kost S., Kölking C. (eds) Transitorische Stadtlandschaften. Hybride Metropolen. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-13726-7_6

[4] Ostrom M. (2007). “Community Supported Agriculture as an Agent of Change: Is it Working?”. Remaking the North American Food System, Clare Hinrichs and Tom Lyson (eds). University of Nebraska Press, pp 99-120.

[5] Bechtel D, van Elsen T. (2015). Potenziale Solidarischer Landwirtschaft für Naturschutz in der Kulturlandschaft. 13. Wissenschaftstagung Ökologischer Landbau. Available online: https://orgprints.org/id/eprint/26965/  

[6] https://www.solidarische-landwirtschaft.org/solawis-finden/auflistung/solawis#accordionHead131864 (last accessed 23.09.2021)

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“Agroecology is a key tool in the transition to sustainable food.”

FAO

“The future of agriculture is not input-intensive but knowledge-intensive. We need the integrated approach that agroecology can offer.”

José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General

On November 25^th, 2018, Agriculture Day was celebrated at the United Nation Conference on Biodiversity COP-14 in Sharm El Sheikh. Under theme of Agriculture Day various sessions were organized and one such session was about ‘Agro-ecological approaches and biodiversity-friendly practices to increase productivity ‘. The session was moderated by Emile Frison from IPES-Food and included panelists from Government of France and Bolivia, Friends of the Earth International, Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE) and Forest Peoples Program (FPP). The session began with panel members presenting initiatives taken by their respective governments and organizations. Mr. Jean Lanotte, from the Government of France (Ministère de l’agriculture et de l’alimentation) highlighted his government’s agroecology policy which aims at reducing use of pesticides, promoting agroforestry and organic agriculture, conducting training of farmers and building an Agriculture Observatory of Biodiversity. Georgina Catacora-Vargas from Government of Bolivia said her country has regulatory framework on agroecology since 2006 and current focus is on education and the inclusion of the tourism sector for the adaptation of the agroecology law. Other panel members mainly from civil society organisations emphasized on connecting agriculture to local culture and moving political systems from large agricultural systems and investing more in agroecology.

“Agroecology offers a unique approach to meeting the needs of future generations while ensuring no one is left behind.”

FAO

From the presentations, reports and facts presented during this session, I learned that agroecological approaches are bottom-up and territorial processes, that can deliver contextualized solutions to local problems. Agroecological systems works on maximizing synergies between different components (soil, water, plants, animals, livestock’s, trees, human resource) of agriculture for achieving greater resource use efficiency and resilience. The knowledge of agroecology can transform food and agricultural systems, addressing the root causes of problems in an integrated way and providing holistic and long-term solutions. For instance, the farmers in Netherlands have developed a mechanism of exchanging their live stock produce for green manure. The grass/clover mixture is sheared several times a year by a local organic livestock farmer in exchange for the manure. Moreover, these farmers do not use pesticides, ploughing is done with a special eco-plough and weed management is done by use of machinery only in the early stages of crop growth. The growing innovations in agroecology are useful in conservation of above and below ground biodiversity. Agriculture is clearly a crucial sector to achieve the sustainable use and the conservation of biological diversity and agroecological approaches are therefore critical in implementation of post 2020 framework.

References:

• Dalgaard, Tommy, and Nicholas Hutchings, John Porter. “Agroecology, Scaling and Interdisciplinarity.” Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment 100(2003): 39-51.
• Rio Convention Bulletin 26 November 2018 Vol. 200 No. 47
• FAO’s work on Agroecology A pathway to achieve SDGs
• FAO. Agroecology Knowledge Hub. Available at: http://www.fao.org/agroecology/en/

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First things first. In the year 2016, the European Commission took legal action against Germany. The reason: The country did not show increasing effort to reduce the water pollution by nitrate. If the limiting value is passed, this affects the nitrate values in ground water, rivers, lakes and oceans as well. The limiting value is 50 mg per liter water – according to a 2016 report of the German government, this limit has been passed in 28% of the sampling sites for ground water.

Where is the nitrate coming from? Mostly from agriculture where it is an integral part in many  fertilizers – these fertilizers can be natural or industrially produced. Plants do need a certain amount of nitrate for growing and normally, the substance is not dangerous for humans. But due to chemical processes, nitrate can become nitrite – which can have negative effects on human health. Too high nitrate values can lead to disturbances in the blood flow in adults, babies can suffer from alterations of oxygen in their cells.

This is the necessary background to understand the case of the EU Commission against Germany. The EU Commission blames the German government for violating the nitrate limits and the water value rule, using values from the year 2012. The German government and the farmers’ institution argue that since then, a lot has been done to improve the situation, for example new laws on fertilizing which are giving new limiting values for nitrate fertilization, time spans for prohibition of fertilizing and “no-fertilizing” areas close to watersheds. Not long before the sentence of the European Court, the farmers institution (Deutscher Bauernverband) announced a decrease of livestock breeding. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung published an interview with Deutscher Bauernverband’s president Joachim Rukwied who admits that „some regions have reached their limit with lifestock breeding” and “the number of animals is likely to decrease”. He also said that the high values of nitrate must decline – according to Rukwied, the new laws on nitrate limitations will lead to a decrease of nitrate in the future. “It is just a question of time”.

However, these arguments were not enough for the European Court: The efforts have been too small. The sentencing of the German government may lead to another, even more drastic step: payments of billions of Euros as a penalty are definitely an option.

Why did I say “finally Germany has been sued”? The answer is quite simple: Germany acts like a role model when it comes to protecting the environment – we talked about that in our articles about waste  for example. The reality looks different as it is one of the countries that use the highest rates of fertilizer in the EU. Instead of talking, Germany should finally take action. The new laws on fertilizing are one step into the right direction though. As the government apparently will not start to change the current agricultural system which is polluting soils and water, this decision of the European Court could maybe overturn the first domino in the chain.

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This is how Martin Abelmann and green citizens of the city of Stuttgart in Germany created the project Stadtacker. Their goal is to give small pieces of land to city dwellers who want to grow veggies and fruits by themselves.

They are not the only one who want to grow food in the city. As more than 50 % of the world population is living in urban settlements, many projects worldwide are flourishing to bring food closer to people. This trend is called urban gardening.

Urban gardening is not only about growing food to feed the near 8 billion earthlings, it’s also about creating a healthy environment, improving people knowledge about Nature and building a sympathetic community.

On an Abandoned Land © stadtacker

The space humanity needs on Earth is increasing so cities are becoming a new home for insects, birds and small mammals. Organic gardens are a biodiversity friendly habitat as fruits and veggies are greatly appreciated by wildlife. Moreover the countryside is saturated by dangerous agricultural pollutants and doesn’t supply enough resources anymore, therefore cities may be a good refuge for biodiversity like bees and pollinators.

There are many benefits of gardening in the cities. They improve people life with small services such as air filtering, temperature cooling and CO2 absorption. Thus, they reduce greenhouse gas emissions by shortening the supply chain; food doesn’t travel thousand of kilometers anymore, instead it is produced locally and eaten directly by the gardeners.

Whoever Can Grow Their Food © stadtacker

Did you know that carrots grow in the ground and not on trees ? I hope yes, but imagine young children who were born in a city and never had the chance to go farming in the countryside. I guess, nowadays they are many who don’t know at which time of the year strawberries are grown or on which tree zucchinis are grown. Urban gardening is an opportunity for these children to learn about the food they eat. Even adults may not know how to seed and then thin carrots. Urban gardening makes people aware about the resource and labor needed to grow food. City dwellers are running further and further away from Nature and they are sadly forgetting the basics : food.

“During the sunny season, we meet weekly every Sunday afternoon. We talk, we ask advice about how to grow this and that. We make friends. Sometimes in the summer, we organize events like music concert, workshops etc.”

As Martin Abelmann highlighted, a community garden is a meeting point. Neighbors meet, talk and have fun. They exchange their know-hows and recipes, the garden becomes a school, a school of Nature, a school of Life.

The green area also encourages the new formed community to participate in the city development and planning. It becomes a place to create planning alternatives, a place to defend environmental ideas, a place to strengthen democracy.

“The gardening area is threatened by a housing building project and even if our garden got a city award and a United Nation price for the decade of the biodiversity, we still need people to militate. We need to show that such a green place managed by citizens has a higher value than building houses. Through public awareness, we hope to be able to keep this green area and continue to grow an environmentally friendly community.“ Martin Abelmann

Written by Thuan SARZYNSKI

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“Biodiversity is a global public good.”– Marie Haga

On the morning of the 9th of November there were strange plastic bags pinned on the wall of the Nordic Pavilion. They contained oranges, peanuts, bananas and, yes, chocolate. The bags represented nine time capsules, containing endangered food that will disappear in the foreseeable future due to climate change. It is a remarkable moment, realizing that we might not be able to eat chocolate in 15 years time, if we do not change our habits and make alternative choices. Other foods including honey, beef, shellfish, coffee and avocados will not be available in 2030, due to droughts, loss of biodiversity and the extinction of pollinators. So what can we do, what choices can we make, in order to save our food?

Every year we need to feed more people with less land and these intensive farming practices cause deforestation, soil exhaustion and water pollution. We are already experiencing a 70% – 80% decrease in insect lives due to our agricultural system and observe in general a massive biodiversity loss due to monocultures and land use change. There are 5500 varieties of crops that can be used for food, but only three of them make up 15% of our diet. An additional 75% of our calories consist of only another 12 crops and 5 animals.

But we are not only losing biodiversity, the variety within species vanishes as well. We used to have over 1000 different types of apples in Europe, today we consume only 6 of them. The US has lost 93% of their crops and animals since 1900. And China has only 10% of its rice variety from 1915. We are therefore losing genetic properties that might enable plants and animal to cope with future climate conditions, such as being drought resistant.

“We must save what we have because we don’t know what we need in the future. We only know we are losing options.” Marie Haga

But there is also hope: In Peru, for example, people are starting to find their way back to their own culture and food again and are very proud to see what a great variety of crops and fruits can be produced. In Lima the International Potato Center was established and people are now discovering what great variety of crops they have not been using for decades. Especially young people, who find job opportunities in gastronomy and try “new” old recipes, cause a booming export of Peruvian food. This valuing of products helps protecting biodiversity. And also Brazil, Sri Lanka, Kenia, Turkey and many more countries rediscover the value of the variety of fruits that have fallen completely out of their diets.

“If you go to a supermarket in Peru, you will find a least 20 varieties of potatoes, with different size, colour and taste.” Gycs Gordon

There is, however, always the need to increase the demand for different varieties of crops in order to make them accessible and establish them in the eating habits of people. Demand gives incentives for farmer to produce and sell various types of crops, so people can buy them for low prices on a daily basis. Therefore, there are many organizations, such as the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition project, trying to use, for example, school feeding programs to raise the demand. In some areas mobile markets were established that can come to the areas where the more disadvantaged people are living and provide affordable, subsidised food.

“Change the image from poor people’s food to a gastronomic pleasure.” Ann Tutwiler

There is still a long way to go. We need to ask more from our food system than only calories. We need it to be sustainable, climate friendly, healthy and nutritious. We need it to support biodiversity and provide long term solutions. We must prepare to live in a warmer world. Maybe then there will be a change that we still might be able to eat chocolate and avocados in 2030.

This article is a resume of the discussion “Eat what’s worth saving” within the Food Day at the Nordic pavilion.  Participants where: Marie Haga, Executive Director, Crop Trust; Ann Tutwiler, Director general, Biodiversity international; Erin Biehl, Senior Program Coordinator, Food System Sustainability and Public Health Program, Johns Hopkins Center for a Liveable Future; Gycs Gordon, Director, Commercial Office of Peru, Hamburg; Sudhvir Singh, Director of Policy, EAT Foundation; The session was moderated by Dan Saladino, Journalist and Producer, BBC, Food Program.

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Organised by CARE International (Sven Harmeling), Center for International Environmental Law – CIEL (Sebastian Duyck), Women’s Environment and Development Organization – WEDO (Bridget Burns)

The Guaranteeing Rights & Gender Equality side event, organized by CARE International, invited a panel of four speakers to debate about human rights as well as gender implications and action strategies for including these priorities within the achievement of Paris goals.

The first to introduce her perspective on the issue was Noelene Nabuliron from Fiji. She saw potential in relying on increasing transparency and accountability to track progress towards equity. Communications, as an essential part for reporting on indices of transformation, were proposed by her.

“With all these strategies, the process would also have to placed in the wider context of a country’s culture and tradition, to understand deviations among nations.”
– Noelene Nabuliron from Fiji

She rounded off her speech by highlighting current problems, such as work of women that is not accounted for, the underlying systemic injustice, and the excessive and extractive production and consumption as major causes of inequality. She concluded with: “Nothing about us, without us.”

Her speech was followed by that of Sebastian Duych from the Center for International Environmental Law, who shifted the focus to the human rights legal perspective. The preamble of the Paris Agreement, he pointed out, can be seen as a very inspiring underlying message. Therefore, he pleaded to ensure that the spirit of the preamble should serve to influence all enforcement mechanisms when discussed during the negotiations and not just the technicalities.

Duych likewise urged states to inform about their status quo on equity at the community level. As a concluding remark, he stressed that only with an advancement of obligations toward including concrete measures to ensure human rights could real progress be expected.

After him, Bridget Burns from the Women’s Environment and Development Organization took the microphone and elaborated on the status of gender and the Paris Agreement. She proposed that gender should not only include women, but also all other sexes. With that she also stressed the recession of development in engagement of women in delegations and the disparity between policy and practice.

Five main claims were brought forward by Burns:
1. Gender responsive climate policy
2. More sex and gender disaggregated data and analysis
3. Meet goal of gender balance
4. 100% gender-responsive climate finance
5. Financing the gender action plan.

She underpinned her speech with the statement : “No gender equality on a dead planet.”

Lastly, “CARE International” closed off the session with a perspective on agriculture and women’s roles, which is not treated with adequate recognition at present. Land ownership and extreme events are striking the most vulnerable the hardest.

All in all, the side event was very helpful in filtering concrete actions and procedures out of the Paris Agreement. Besides the will to do something about inequalities in the world, all speakers demanded increasing action and a shift in focus on concrete plans. The “Gender Action Plan” can only be a first step in the right direction.

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