Ongoing projects

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Sustainable cut flowers from Hamburg

The Vier- und Marschlande region near Hamburg has been a center of horticulture for centuries, especially for the cultivation of cut flowers. Numerous smaller farms characterize this fertile cultural landscape and supply florists and retailers via the Hamburg wholesale market - the largest of its kind in Germany. However, the industry is under considerable pressure: low-priced cut flower imports, rising energy costs and demanding working conditions are jeopardizing the economic viability of regional production.

This is precisely where the EIP project "Sustainable cut flowers" comes in. The aim is to make the industry fit for the future - economically, socially and ecologically. To achieve this, the association Fair and Green e.V., Athenga GmbH (consulting), the University of Kassel and practical companies from the Vier- und Marschland region are working together.

Sustainability management as a solution approach

The core of the project is the introduction of the "Fair'n Green" sustainability management tool, which was originally developed with organic and conventional wine and fruit farms. This tool is being adapted for the specific challenges of cut flower cultivation. It offers a structured framework for developing and testing sustainable strategies, for example for economic stabilization through new marketing channels, for improving working conditions and for ecological improvement of production.

Scientific analysis and practical implementation

The University of Kassel is providing scientific support and contributing its expertise to the analysis of the current challenges and needs of horticultural businesses and the development of new marketing channels and knowledge networks. Fair and Green focuses primarily on the adaptation and further development of the sustainability management system and is developing an indicator for pesticide regulation as well as a life cycle assessment for cut flower cultivation.

Further information can be found here:

https://projekte.eip-nds.de/nachhaltige-pflanzenproduktion/bluehende-nachhaltigkeit-ein-projekt-fuer-zukunftsfaehige-schnittblumengaertnereien/

https://www.fairandgreen.com/nachhaltige-schnittblumen-eip/

Urban Agriculture Innovation Area - New Garden City Öjendorf

Hamburg's agriculture is an example of local sustainability challenges in the food system: despite urban utopias, technological visions, civil society initiatives and demands for regional, environmentally friendly, sustainable production and marketing in the agricultural sector, the potential of urban agriculture has not yet been used as a momentum for innovative business concepts, sustainable lifestyles, contributions to climate and environmental goals and regional economic dynamics of a sustainable agriculture and food industry in the city-regional area (Feldmann et. al. 2023). The surrounding farms have been supplying the growing metropolis with agricultural products for centuries, in particular vegetables, ornamental plants and cut flowers from the Vier- und Marschlanden and fruit from the Altes Land. Despite this tradition on the one hand and many visions and experiments in the field of urban gardening on the other, local agriculture in Hamburg is coming under increasing pressure: population growth requires more housing to be built, sometimes on land previously used for agriculture, such as in Oberbillwerder or the new garden city of Öjendorf. Experts agree that the connections between city dwellers interested in gardening and commercial horticulture must be established and strengthened in order to shape the field of tension between urbanization, regionality and relocalization, health awareness, urban gardening and digitalization with innovative, integrative and sustainable concepts of urban agriculture.

The project aims to establish an innovation area for urban agriculture as part of the urban development of the Neue Gartenstadt Öjendorf on land previously used for agriculture in Hamburg. Together with our cooperation partners HafenCity University Hamburg and the Julius Kühn Institute, our department is developing a conceptual framework for the participatory development and testing of plausible business scenarios for various innovation models for horticultural production, value creation and marketing. The aim is to help integrate the wide variety of forms of urban agriculture in a context-specific manner into a viable, transferable demonstration model and development process for urban agriculture.

Image: Lubos Houska on Pixaby

Organic climate vegetables

In cooperation with the Department of Agricultural and Food Marketing, the junior research group is investigating the obstacles and potentials of a climate-adapted, regional value network for organic vegetables.

How can the contribution of regionally and organically produced vegetables to a sustainable diet be increased and the value creation network be adapted to the effects of climate change in northern Hesse at the same time? For the simultaneous expansion and adaptation of production, economic, strategic and organizational questions regarding the characteristics of the value chains and consumer behaviour must be taken into account. The project therefore addresses not only the fresh produce sector, but also the creation of regional processing structures. To ensure that regional value creation networks can be developed successfully, the seasonal limitations of the regional supply and the consumption habits of consumers are examined. Interviews, workshops, network analyses and consumer surveys are carried out in close cooperation with practitioners in order to create system, target and action knowledge for sufficient regional production, processing and sales structures.

To the project website and the other cooperation partners

Good work in cocoa value chains

Competencies for future managers in sustainable food systems

Transdisciplinary agenda for research and practice for sustainable food systems

The SISA-4 workshop has resulted in four working groups and the formation of the whole network as a. Thematic Group under the umbrella of the Sustainability Transitions Research Network. One of them follows the results of the workshop discussions between practise and research, to integrate the current state of the art af agro-food transitions studies with knowledge gaps in transitions in the making. For developing a transdisciplinary research and action agenda, we co-develop with our partners both a methodological approach as well as formats to involve practicioners as well as perspectives from the global south.

SISA-4 Workshop

Despite earlier and more recent scientific evidence, societies are facing enormous and persistent sustainability challenges. The field of agri-food transition research is characterized by different - mainly only incremental - change patterns and the theoretical perspectives to describe, explain and foster them range across different scholarly fields. Furthermore, research insights often are not well tuned to the needs and challenges of agricultural practices and policies. This workshop invited researchers and practitioners to co-generate an integrative overview on contemporary issues in agri-food transitions and future avenues in research, policy making as well as in innovation and transition practice. Collaboration is continued in follow-up working groups. A documentation of the SISA format can be found here.

Image: Aaron Burden on unsplash

Logbook of changes

The 'Logbook of Changes' is a citizen science qualitative long-term diary study. Since March 2020, citizens have been documenting observations in their everyday routines that have been changed by the coronavirus pandemic and other crises.
The project is being carried out in cooperation with the [Sustainability-Transformation-Transfer] research center at Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development.
The Hans Sauer Foundation is currently funding a project module for the co-interpretation and communication of the results.
A public discussion event was held at the Humboldt Labor in Berlin on May 5.

To the event