Learning from Freiburg’s Food Initiatives

Our current agricultural and food system, which has dominated since approximately the 1970s, has devastating ecological and health-related consequences. It is socially unjust and it is not working economically, not for farmers nor for food artisans and small processors. And although food production has increased massively in recent decades, people are still starving. The World Agricultural Report already pointed out 15 years ago: “Business as usual is not an option.” Unfortunately, the problems have worsened since then. Thus, alternatives are urgently needed.

We can distinguish between three types of “alternatives”. First, there are alternative foods, such as organic and regional products. Secondly, there are alternatives to the conventional supply chains in the food sector. These refer mostly to direct marketing, but also fair trade, for example. In my research, I have shown that in addition to these two types, we also need to look at the economic practices themselves. That is why I am interested in farms and initiatives that operate in a fundamentally different way, be it in terms of ownership, financing, labour or transactions. I am interested in the extent to which they can  avoid the instruments and structures inherent in the conventional capital and commodity markets. And so, I ask: What alternative ways of financing, business management or distribution already exist? How well do they work? What are their limits? Which parameters would need to change for the businesses to be able to operate successfully?

Recently, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has received a lot of attention. Here, consumers cooperate directly and in solidarity with one or more farms. They make decisions together and share costs, risks, and rewards. We can also find farms or restaurants that are organized as a registered co-operative. And some work with the support of a foundation. Many of these approaches and initiatives can be summarised under the keyword “Alternative Food Networks”. Exploring them could show us potential paths towards more sustainable and equitable food systems.

There are several reasons: Firstly, as a self-proclaimed “Green City”, Freiburg is very present in the academic literature on the topic of sustainability, which includes also critical discussions. The university itself is well regarded in terms of sustainability research. Secondly, the region offers many points of interest for my field research. For historical reasons, many small farms remain until today. This, combined with the high value given to environmental protection in the region, meant that various alternative ways of organising production and distribution could emerge.

I was particularly interested in the Regionalwert AG founded in Eichstetten near Freiburg. This public company collects money from private individuals like you and me in order to finance a sustainable food economy – including farms, the processing and trade as well as the gastronomy sector. 

On the one hand, I was impressed by how many famers’ markets there are in Freiburg and how well the direct sale of regional produce seems to work. The well-offgreen-ecological milieu probably contributes to this. In addition, the desire to preserve the Black Forest as a cultural landscape prevents more intensive land use. Therefore, traditional and sustainable agricultural techniques such as hillside grazing continue to be used. Both of these observations demonstrate a strong connection between the city and region, I believe. This region’s geographical location is also interesting as Switzerland, France, and Germany all have different culinary traditions. However, these are all just initial observations that I would like to systematically explore further after my stay in Freiburg.

FRIAS has an excellent reputation and I was already familiar with it from several conferences I had participated in before. In addition, I already had very good connections to my geography colleagues  in Freiburg. Furthermore, there are many points of contact in sustainability research, especially with the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources. That’s why I had been thinking about applying for a stay at FRIAS for a while now. The fact that it worked out with the Marie S. Curie Fellowship is a particular honour for me because of the highly competitive procedure. Incidentally, the University of Würzburg also saw it that way, and kindly allowed me to take up my professorship, to which I was appointed on 1 July 2022, at a later date. In retrospect, I can say that I benefited greatly both from my field research in the Freiburg region as well as from the open exchange across disciplines that took place at FRIAS.