RegioWertGeBen

In the light of global conflicts and environmental and food crises, securing regional food supply is a politically and socially desirable goal. The 2020 Farm to Fork Strategy of the European Commission has provided a perspective for the transformation to a sustainable food system. Organic farming is recognised as having great potential to contribute to this transformation due to its wide-ranging ecological and social benefits. This is also manifested in the Organic Action Plan of the European Commission and the German Future Strategy for Organic Farming (Zukunftstrategie Ökologischer Landbau), developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and practitioners, advisors, scientists and administrators, which aims to increase the area of organic farming to 30% by 2030, as set out in the new coalition agreement.

The use of regional organic food can be promoted by increasing the share of organic food in communal catering. To date, however, there is a lack of regional processing companies and the corresponding logistics structures as well as a lack of suitable land for cultivation (especially in the vegetable sector) in many regions. To change this, it is necessary to better understand the gaps in the entire food system, to identify their causes and, based on this, to develop possible solutions and ways of changing the system. This is how the potential of regional organic value chains can be better realised.

So far, there is little data and information about the degree of food security in Germany and how regional organic agriculture contributes to it. Known causes of gaps in the value chain include a lack of funding and a lack of actors to develop independent marketing and processing structures in the regional organic sector.

In the RegioWertGeBen project, we pursue the overall objective of developing innovative and actionable approaches to strengthen regional organic communal catering. We aim to do this by using the example of the vegetable sector in two pilot regions – Ludwigsburg-Stuttgart and North Hesse – and thus contribute to strengthening organic farming and to supplying the population with organic food in the two regions. This is to be achieved by identifying and evaluating various approaches, deriving recommendations for action and communication measures for regional food system stakeholders and policy recommendations.

The project is geared towards practical application the joint build-up of knowledge between scientists, practitioners and civil society.