The German food system has a low level of self-sufficiency in many food sectors. The relevance of imports is correspondingly high in many areas and the resilience of the food system with regard to possible crises is low. However, ecological location factors do not necessarily make it impossible to increase the regional food supply.
Despite the popularity of regionalization of the food system in Germany, it often fails due to eroded processing structures. The decline in agricultural businesses has been accompanied by a drastic decline in mills, dairies, cheese dairies and bakeries, for example. Rebuilding these structures poses major challenges for individual players and requires a great deal of effort on their part.
Against this background, a project funded by the Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank focused on good practices in the processing of hen's eggs and vegetables as well as processing needs in the grain legume sector. The questions guiding the research: How did the development of existing processing structures succeed? What were the challenges and success factors? At the end of last year, the report "Establishing regional processing structures - How can a trend reversal succeed?" was published. This was based on interviews with three managers of processing and production companies.
Project no.: | 258 |
Categories: | Research | Socio-economics of farm business | |
Client: | Rentenbank (development agency for agribusiness and rural areas) |
Duration: | 2022-2023 |
Contact person/s at IfLS: | Carla Wember |
Project management: | Carla Wember, Lukas Dörrie |
