“Agricultural turnaround from below”: Solidarity agriculture wants to start in spring

The Solidarity Agriculture (SoLaWi) Isartal wants to start in the spring in Degerndorf near Münsing.

The initiator calls the project the “agricultural turnaround from below”.

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen

- gardening has been very popular since the outbreak of the pandemic.

In the Isar valley, a solidarity-based agriculture has now been founded in the form of a cooperative, which would like to start growing its own organic vegetables next spring.

Later, the initiator Hans-Werner Thürk and his almost 100 colleagues so far also want to cultivate orchards.

Solidarity Agriculture (SoLaWi) Isartal has leased a three-hectare field in Degerndorf near Münsing. Professional gardeners, paid by the community of solidarity, will grow and harvest local, seasonal vegetables there. They receive support from the Weidenkam Castle Gardening, also at Münsing, with decades of experience. Anyone from the members who would like to lend a hand is cordially invited. The aim is to initially supply around 100 households in the Isar Valley with boxes of vegetables via distribution stations between Wolfratshausen and Pullach, explains Thürk.

For years there have been farms such as market gardens in the region that regularly deliver organic vegetables to their customers, for example the “eco box”. The new and exciting thing about solidarity agriculture, according to founding member Thürk, is that the producers of the food and the consumers form a close community beyond the usual market events of supply and demand. “The special thing is that the vegetables are not bought, but shared - and that applies to good as well as bad harvests.” So it is not the producers who bear the full risk, as is usual in the market economy, but the community. One only needs to remember the devastating hail in spring, which destroyed a number of plantations.

Almost 100 comrades have already come together, according to Hans-Werner Thürk.

One part costs 150 euros.

The gardeners, the rent and the tools are paid for by this.

At regular meetings, the members jointly decide what is to be planted.

You can purchase freshly harvested and regionally produced organic vegetables all year round - a little is bought in in winter - and share the joy of the project with the community.

An “agricultural turnaround from below”, Thürk calls the project.

He sees it as a supplement and a gap in the "Potato Combine", which supplies around 1,800 households in Munich with vegetable crates delivered weekly, and the "Biotop Oberland" in Lenggries with around 500 members.

There is still no such solidarity project in the north of the district.

Tanja Lühr

info

If you want to find out more about SoLaWi or support the cooperative as a sustaining member, if you want to purchase a vegetable box as a member or actively participate in cultivation, you are invited to an information event at the Klostermaier inn in Icking on Thursday, November 25th, starting at 7.30 p.m. get.

Another event is planned online for Wednesday, December 1st, starting at 7 p.m.

The access data is available from www.solawi-isartal.de or by telephone on 01 52/33 85 57 65.

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