Closing the Gap Between Community, Food & Economics: Frieburg, Germany
Posted: May 27, 2014
Categories: economic development / Food in the News / Food in the News / GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Ontario
Many of us are unable to deny the dynamic connection that food has to economics. Too often though, what seems to be missing from this connection, is the role of community. Garden Earth, recently wrote on this subject as they highlighted the efforts made by one organization, the Regionalwert AG (RWAG), in Freiburg, Germany. In the Freiburg region, it has become increasingly apparent that the development of large-scale, monoculture type farms have begun to push small-scale and family run farms out of the picture. The problem related to acquiring working capital and land were the driving forces behind what led farmer, Christian Hiss, to form a new type of business concept in 2006. Furthermore, his eagerness to change the relationship between ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ and the way they view each other, has led to what Christian refers to as a “Community Connected Agriculture” model.
The RWAG has become so successful, that they can boast of having 500 investors from various areas of the food sector. They currently support sixteen operations including a winery, a catering company, 2 vegetable farms and a dried fruit operation. RWAG’s main focus is providing support to organic farms and other associated groups in the entire food chain through providing capital at fixed interest rates or through the leasing of farmlands at reasonable costs. RWAG also encourages sustainable practices of all the enterprises involved, through the use of 64 sustainability indicators which are collected and compiled into an annual report.
For more details, you can access the full blog at Gardenearth.ca.