In the tent of the Federal Programme for Organic Farming and Other Forms of Sustainable Agriculture (in german: "BÖLN") at the Öko-Feldtage, the regiosöl team presented the project and what has been achieved so far. Posters showed the results of the status quo analysis of existing tools for sustainability analysis and the practical test of the regional value instruments.
A door opener for the audience was the participation poster, on which interested people could weight the regiosöl criteria of social performance with points. Many farmers participated, but also actors from science, processing structures and local government.
The results show that the audience primarily accesses the project topic through the ecological criteria of biodiversity, water quality, water availability and soil functionality. These are already well captured in existing sustainability analysis tools. The regional economic criteria of regional supply, value creation and value chains were also often marked. In particular, criteria that are directly related to food production were selected.
In contrast, social aspects such as cultural heritage, flood protection, disaster prevention and local recreation do not seem to be as strongly anchored in the consciousness. In addition to regional services, the regiosöl project places a special focus on these social services, which participants also refer to as add-ons. This raises the exciting question of the difference between sustainability services and social services, which the project team is addressing.
Contact persons at IfLS: Marie Sophie Schmidt (schmidt[at]ifls.de) and Simone Sterly (sterly[at]ifls.de)
