[ACTION in Development] – Write A Food Policy Paper (For Berlin)

Another related event to attend in Berlin:

http://www.hermann-henselmann-stiftung.de/Archive/941

Today we start PHASE 2 of the DIF: create an ACTION Protocol.

This means that we take all the experiences we made during the preparation of the DIF and the feedback we got during PHASE 1 (brainstorming) and condense them into the ACTION Protocol format.

As the ACTION Protocol is meant ot be for any city and not only for Berlin we have moved this to [ACTION in Development] - Write A Circular City Food Policy Paper where we created a sandpit document for all to try out their writing skills. Join in and help us!

Yet another related event I found in my inbox today:

Einladung zur Info-Veranstaltung über die Landschaftsbaumaßnahmen im Grünen Band Berlin. Es werden die Maßnahmen im Bereich des ehemaligen Mauerstreifens zwischen Klemkestraße und S-Bhf. Wilhelmsruh und vom Wilhelmsruher Damm bis Friedhof Rosenthal vorgestellt.

Datum: 29.11.2016
Zeit: 18:00 bis 19:00 Uhr
Ort: Rathaus Pankow, Großer Ratssaal
Breite Straße 24 A – 26, 13187 Berlin

Ich würde mich freuen, wenn Sie diese Information an interessierte Kreise weitereiten könnten. (meaning it’s open for anyone interested, please share the date).

started to reach out to the DIF community by searching, watching and commenting on existing related topics there such as

All related streams seem to be here: https://www.thinkdif.co/schedule/topics#food-farming, but I haven’t had a chance to check them out…

On tomorrow:

Everyone: Please add here what you find on the DIF platform and don’t hesitate to post your own cross-pollinating posts there.

Sent out a reminder-invitation for the Berlin event on Saturday and posted it on the TT Pankow-Blog and facebook:


Did sent this invite out to (almost) all of the groups/ projects and organizations/ companies I mentioned in the thread. Only a few people I know personally did respond.

On facebook it was re-posted a few times.

Next event for the list (sadly you can’t be everywhere at once):

BiwAK-Seminar: Der Stadtentwicklungsausschuss - Eine themenorientierte Einführung in die Ausschussarbeit am 26.11.2016

Der Stadtentwicklungsausschuss: Eine themenorientierte Einführung in die Ausschussarbeit

Kommunalpolitisches Seminar
Samstag, den 26. November 2016 11:00 – 16:00 Uhr
Rathaus Tiergarten, Saal der Bezirksverordnetenversammlung, Mathilde-Jacob-Platz 1, 10551 Berlin

Aufgabe der Stadtentwicklung ist die städtebauliche Planung und Entwicklung der Stadt bzw. der Quartiere mit ihren räumlichen und sozialen Strukturen. Sie schafft damit die planungsrechtlichen Voraussetzungen für die bauliche Entwicklung der Stadt und die Fortentwicklung der städtischen Infrastruktur.

Wir möchten Ihnen einen Einblick geben in die Arbeit des Stadtentwicklungsamtes sowie in die Aufgaben des begleitenden Ausschusses. Dabei werden die gesetzlichen Grundlagen und planerischen Instrumente vorgestellt. Einzelne Fallbeispiele sollen Ihnen einen anschaulichen Einstieg möglich machen.

Mit:

  • Jochen Biedermann, in der VII. Wahlperiode Vorsitzender des Stadtentwicklungsausschusses in Neukölln, jetzt Bezirksstadtrat für Stadtentwicklung, Soziales und Bürgerdienste (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
  • Nadine Fehlert, Jahn, Mack & Partner architektur und stadtplanung
  • Nicole Kirschbaum, Jahn, Mack & Partner architektur und stadtplanung
  • Hans Panhoff, Bezirksstadtrat für Planen, Bauen und Umwelt in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
  • Ulrike Zeidler, Leiterin des Stadtentwicklungsamtes in Treptow-Köpenick
  • Moderation: Cornelius Bechtler, BiwAK e.V.

Teilnahmegebühr: 15,- € (Mitglieder und ermäßigt 10,- €). Wir bitten um die Überweisung des Teilnahmebeitrags. Eine Anmeldung ist erforderlich.


Bildungswerk für Alternative Kommunalpolitik (BiwAK) e.V. Sebastianstraße 21, 10179 Berlin.

Wenn Sie Informationen über Veranstaltungen von BiwAK e.V. nicht mehr erhalten wollen, schicken Sie uns bitte eine E-Mail an info@biwak-ev.de.

The event was small, maybe a lack of advertizing, maybe it was not well formulated what it is about. Maike and Lars will discuss this with Frans this week.

A documentation of the evening and the results of the discussion at the tables will follow soon.

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Follow-up:

even though the ACTION Protocol development was not completed, the process has had several positive outcomes for local activities:

  • we have tested two new workshop formats at the IPU-conference and in the Baumhaus that both worked quite well, they have potential and will be documented as soon as we get round to it
  • we now have a fairly comprehensive overview of ‘edible cities’ in Germany (ca. 130) and will soon also have a more detailed ethercalc on who does what and how they can be contacted
  • we have created an extensive list of potential cooperation partners that we can extend and use in the future process
  • we have established good contact with the Food Council Berlin and will have further discussion on how to integrate this work here into their process (e.g. maybe taking the format of the pad and ethercalc we created)
  • we have made some interesting new contacts through the OSCE-platform
  • we have made good contact to a big local public housing corporation in Berlin and will discuss with them on urban gradening/ urban farming and other food projects after Christmas
  • we are considering to found a co-ordination and consulting business for housing corporations/ housing associations/ clinics and other private urban spaces that could be used for urban farming.
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Finally some documentation of our debate during the Baumhaus event:

General:

  • The location was great, nice atmosphere and some snacks and drinks to make it an event people want to stay at.
  • Prepration was very little work (ca. 15 Minutes) and cheap (5 Euros in materials +four existing tables and chairs) which makes it easy to run this format.
  • As the format is very flexible one doesn’t need to know how many people will show up, anything between 5 and 50 can be accomodated for a productive meeting.
  • We had printed out the preliminary work to show the process that this was supposed to be the final event to. This we could have skipped as noone will stand to read 16 pages stuck to the wall.

Format:

  • We had set up two tables with two topics each (with questions already written down on them) for people to sit at and chat about them in an open but slightly pre-structured discussion. As there were not that many people the one group talked about all four topics. It always works well to have paper on the table for documentation and doodling.
  • There was also space for an ‘open greeting zone’ and scrap paper for people to exchange notes and adresses. Had there been more participants this may have worked well, this way we couldn’t test how people would behave. Experience from the Baumhaus shows though, that it works well to have a zone where it is an accepted and desired social behaviour to approach anyone, introduce yourself and ask them what they’re doing and why they came.

Discussion:

Production:
How do we grow things? Where do we grow things? Where do we start in 1, 5, 10, 15 years?

  • Can Apps optimize the production?
  • Urban gardening business? Which legal difficulties do we face to establish them? How can we create trust in them?
  • reduce waste/ eat consciously/ eat sustainably with children/ integrate this into a busy life (time, strength)/ retain quality of life/ in the city/ manage the logistic of daily ways/ cars are more flexible on long distances and when transporting bulky items/ dealing with cosumption habits (and the tastes of children) -> new website- find it or set it up / learn what it possible -> make alternatives accessible -> cooking circle or cooking coop; bulk buying club for sustainable food (belongs to ‘distribution’)
  • organize bio-dynamic agriculture - in a private garden in the countryside -> in old age there is not enough energy for working the land/ it’s not financially viable for one person
  • Domäne Dahlem -> museum for the history of food safety -> which laws do we need to keep and which are in the way of more sustainable production?

Distribution:
How do we distribute food (fairly)? Where do we distribute food? What can we do in 1,5,10, 15 years?

  • Urban local gardening reduces the need for packaging
  • What happens in the old soil in my patch when I replace it with new soil?
  • Should we get everything (or at elast more) deliverd? -> intelligent distribution
  • Pupil’s transport-bike food delivery cooperative (it’s a program at German secondary schools to combat truancy and resistance to schooling by replacing conventional classes with working in a non-profit pupil’s business)-> benefits: profits could be donated/ pupils get fitter/ less emmissions/ social interaction between pupils-pensioners, handicapped, single parents (or who else is unable to shop for themselves)
  • Bulk shopping: people pay less by ordering larger amounts and sharing them
  • Could be: Step 1: create a collection of problem stories of activists/ set up a website with an invitation to send your probem stories/ We are collecting stories about … to inspire political change -> share your story // ->Introduction: regulations often prevent sustainability. But sometimes they are outdated and just stop sustainable change. We are collecting stories where this happens to use this collection for political change. are you an activist? Please send your story.
  • It could be a good website using wordpress, maybe a subpage on Transition Town Berlin (or rather Pankow): stories.ttpankow.de (or rather: ttpankow/wordpress.com/stories but it doesn’t exist yet)

Recycling
How can we recycle ALL nutrients (not just food waste)? Where do we recycle the nutrients? How can we start in 1,5,10,15?

Cooperate better with the BSR (public Berlin waste management company)?
Problem: Düngemittelgesetz (regulations banning human excrements as fertilizer)

There was one girl who is currently working with her team to develop a worm composting box furniture piece (making it a nice thing to have in you household, like a bench to sit on). Sadly she had to leave early so we couldn’t get more comments on the nutrient recycling part.

Also look at the circular sanitation Challenge for other work on the subject here in the froum: http://community.oscedays.org/t/challenge-circular-sanitation

Education/ Information:
What do we need to teach and learn? Who do we need to teach and learn from? Where do we teach and learn? How do we start in 1,5,10,15 years?

  • Walt-Disney-method: meditative/ imaginative journey in which different characters play different parts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_method
  • Dragon dreaming/ future scenario or other dream workshop format (in the Mauergarten community garden, mauergarten.net) -> which options do we have for the future? We need to dare to look further ahead.
  • Pioneers do projects: how do we find thos-> who show that a different approach is possible? Use networks. -> hub for information -> using media actively/ low threshold (barrier free) for any kind of user. Collect and publicize blogs on sustainable food. Create events for direct exchange.
  • Examples for pioneers: 7-Felder e.V. (association for the support of cultural education porjects in Berlin), associations that offer programs to schools and find public funding for them-> business model? to develop new teachign materials, practical, exciting and interdisciplinary -> teachign kits and work sheets
  • Project weeks at school (common format in German schools: the kids work on the same topic in all school subjects for one week)-> thematic field: sustainability -> for 2017 there will be a reform of the core curriculum for Berlin schools with mulit/interdisciplinary topics, one of them being sustainability.
  • Collect problem stories to stimulate ideas for solutions: ask pioneers: what do you do? what do you want to do in the future? What hinders you to do you work better, realize your dreams and plans for the future and/ or reach your goals? What would need to change to enable you to reach your goals? Which policies need to change to help you in your work?

@Lars2i and @Clemens: you were there, please add and correct.
@Lars2i: you have some pictures from the event itself, please post 1-2 of them here.

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The project is developing some nice after-effects. Not the intended policy paper (yet) but unintended forks:

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hi!
@transitionmica

here is translation in Russian on your project of urban gardening

urban gardening Russian translation.docx (20.3 KB)

You know, my friend also works on a project for urban gardening, permaculture, education and vermicomposting in St.Petersburg. Now they got a territory opened for everyone where they grow vegetables according to permaculture principles. If you may need some information about vermicomposting and permaculture I may ask to make a call with you with translation.

Also I remember there is a good online in coursera called “Municipal Solid waste management in developing countries”. Even the focus of the course is on the developing countries, they look closely at different ways of organic waste treatment and management.

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Hi, thanks for the offer, I may get back to it once I start getting this year’s OSCEdays circular sanitation topic together. Currently I’m busy with giving talks on Microfinance in the Philippines, but I did make some interesting connections to development projects that need integrated toilet-energy solutions. Let’s see what the BoSt says about my ideas on that.

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May be useful
an article about existing apps for food sharing

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Today I created a German ‘edible city’ Wikipedia page to publish the results of our research so far and start publicising the concept on a well known platform. I got a scaving remark on the (admittedly) non existent quality of the first version. But hey, it’s a start:

We’ll now contact all the ‘edible cities’ in Germany that responded to our first call to update their information in the ethercalc-table and ask them to add, edit and review the article. Together we should be able to create a good text that can then be kept updated by anyone.

Na da bin ick ja ma jespannt, ob ditt erhalten bleibt mit den Exklusionisten (auch genannt ‘Löschnaz…’) in der Überzahl in der deutschen Wikipedia.

Update: Oh, das ging ja wie erwartet sehr schnell. Der Löschantrag ist schon angebracht.

Ja, aber es gibt auch schon Gegenstimmen. Ich setze mich morgen nochmal dran.

update:
so far so good, noch ist der Eintrag da.

some ‘edible cities’ responded, all were in favour of the initiative to have a Wikipedia entry. Some offered to help improve the article. It’s a good start.

Lars thread has brought a new participant onboard, we’re currently discussing options for such a business.

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The Wikipedia entry made it through! Edible cities is now an offically encyclopedic term. Plus we got in touch with other edible cities, namely Kassel and Andernach.

Interesting event related to this: http://www.schweisfurth-stiftung.de/stadt-land-tisch/call-for-papers-urban-farming-konferenz-in-berlin/

more updates:

  • the Ernährungsrat is becoming a relevant organisation politicians want to speak to, and we managed to recycle quite a few of the thoughts of the https://ethercalc.org/uhnt8g5bxlc11 we developed during the DIF-collaboration

  • Friday is the last event of the ‘Klimagärten’-Series. Maike wants to attend it to do some more networking.

Update on the process:

  • Maike is now part of the core group of the Food Council Berlin where she is mainly working on the topics edible city and nutrient recycling, both of which are included in teh draft paper by now
  • We will collaborate with the Forum Stadtgärtnern to organize an event on “edible city berlin” early in September 2017
  • we have established contacts to Andernach, Kassel, Vancouver and Toronto to learn from their experience
  • we have unsuccessfully tried to get involved with the local government in Pankow. as they were non-responsive to our mails we filed an official request to the local council, the reply was somewhat sad: they claim to have no capacities to even look into the matter.
  • the food council has contacted several other districts in berlin that claim to be edible with a similar result: none of them seriously plan to do more than planting a few trees and bushes in public space.

It seems as if Berlin food policy still has a very long way to go.

Update 2019: We made really good progress!

  • the Berlin Food Council has adopted the “edible city” as one of their core demands: http://ernaehrungsrat-berlin.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Ernaehrungsrat_FK_2017_web.pdf
  • this demand has made it into the “Ernährungsstrategie für Berlin” (food policy for Berlin) which was recently presented by the city senate:
    https://www.berlin.de/sen/justva/presse/pressemitteilungen/2017/pressemitteilung.640009.php
  • the event on “Edible City” in collaboration with the Forum Stadtgärtnern took place in September 2017 and was a great success.
  • there are two very interesting research projects that Maike is involved in:
    http://sunex-project.eu/wp/
    https://www.futurelandscapes.tu-berlin.de/menue/edicitnet_projekt/
  • Berlin will get a “Forest Garden” as part of another research program from 2020 onwards:http://urbane-waldgaerten.de/
  • Berlin will have an “Urban Gardening Beauftragter” (person responsible for coordinating urban gardening within the berlin authorities) starting in 2019
  • Berlin has is currently developing a “Charta für Berliner Stadtgrün” (charter for the urban green in Berlin" which inclused the urban gardening network and will comprise a policy for protecting the Berlin allotments: https://mein.berlin.de/projects/diskutieren-sie-das-impulspapier-fur-eine-charta-f/
  • we will finally start putting things into action in autumn 2019 by taking part in the art exhibition and planting a great diversity of wild and grafted traditional apple trees in Berlin schools, and maybe parks or other green places: http://www.antjemajewski.de/portfolio/apples-an-introduction-over-and-over-and-once-again-201415/ . We plan to follow up with planting other fruit and nut trees and developing the area around the trees with other edible plants and Mycorrhiza fungi
  • http://stadtmachtsatt.de/ is currently doing the project “Wandelnde Bäume” with school kids in Berlin. Young trees are planted in mobile containers that have a bench on each side to encourage satying with them. The children can move them, e.g. for art performaces or demonstartions in public spaces, and will take care of them until they have grown enough to be planted in the city. (sadly no documentation published yet, but it looks really cool!).
  • Maike is planning on developing and building a “Juice Making Cycle” including machines for making juice that are tansportable and usable with school children, a Cyceloo-type pop-up composting toilet, a mobile compost heap, a mobile apple tree, and a micro-methanizer for producing the cooking gas for the pasteurization. That way she hopes to make the food cycle visible, from apple tree to juice through the human body back to the soil and the tree. The goal is to let people (teachers, parents and children alike) experience how they are part of the ecosystem and interlinked with the environment: Protecting nature is directly linked to caring for oneself, right now and right here.
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