CSA Gemüseinsel - regenerative organic vegetable growing by Gemüseinsel

Backers
251
Funded
20.800 €
Stage goal
25.500 €
to go
23 days

Added value for the environment

The project saves or improves the areas of ...

human	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
ground, water, air	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
climate	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
animals and plants	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
biodiversity	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
material and cultural assets	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
energy and use of resources	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Resources used

The resources used are ...

produced sustainably	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
eco-certified	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
fair-trade	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
of regional origin	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
used efficiently	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
recycled, upcycled	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
renewable (e.g. energy)	☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

This self-assessment by the project starter serves as a decision support for the crowd. Not all criteria must be met, but all alternatives should be considered.

Summary

Climate positive veggies? Solidaricly financed? That is our vision! We want to merge climate protection, biodiversity conservation, food souvereignity and community togehter.

Description

Our Idea
Agriculture is … big machines, biogas plants, gmo and pesticides? Not neccesarily. Think of interplanting, diverse crop rotations, flowering hedges and humus buildup. Do you have an image in mind? Then you can see the Gemüseinsel (translates to island of vegetables). In addition to that we want to have a close relationship to our CSA (community supported agriculture) members. With this crowdfunding campaign we want to make this picture a reality. The location of our CSA is in Dietzenrode in the middle of Germany (Thuringia). We will be under organic certification, but our aspirations are way beyond that.

CSA
The CSA modell of selling vegetables puts the community in the focus of selling. Members buy before the season starts a share of the harvest. During the season they get a box of veggies once per week. For us as gardeners that is great, because we don’t have to bring all the produce to the farmers market. At the market you never know what will sell out. Most of the time you take produce back home. A big part of those vegetables cannot be sold next week and have to be wasted. With the CSA modell we know exactly what to produce in what quantities before the season starts. Food waste is minimized. For the consumers it is great, because most of the time they get more food for one buck compared to the grocery store.

More information about harvestshares at https://www.solawi-gemueseinsel.de/

What is the funded money used for?

	50.000 €	Plant protection netting and fleece
	47.500 €	Various infrastructure (fences, boxes ...)
	44.000 €	Seeds and plant material (trees, shrubs ...)
	40.500 €	Walk-in cooler
	37.000 €	Delivery vehicle
	32.500 €	Various gardening tools (hoes, spades, wood chipper ...)
	25.500 €	Walk-behind tractor
	18.000 €	Hoop houses
	11.000 €	Irrigation fountain and irrigation system

We have little money – but big ideas. Every bit of financial support helps us coming closer to our dream. It also helps us to not have to get into debt with banks and others. And even if we can not fund the targeted amount, we will realise our project. It is just a matter of how heavy our financial burdens will be. A total of 50.000 Euro will provide for all costs. Everything that will exceed this amount will directly be put into actions for biodiversity conservation like more trees or rare domestic plant species.

The financial goals
The biggest investments are the irrigation system, the hoophouses and the walk-behind-tractor. We need the irrigation fountain to get access to groundwater, because using fresh water seems to be an unsustainable choice for us. The hoophouses will enlarge our growing season in the spring and the fall, to provide our CSA members earlier and later in the season with crops like tomatoes. For our strategy of minimal tillage we need the walk-behind tractor. For storing and delivering we need the walk-in cooler and the delivery vehicle. All the other objects we need for the practical vegetable growing.

By the way, for us it is better if you do not use paypal, beacause then we do not get your full payment since we have to give a small percentage to paypal.

Why is the project an EcoCrowd project?

Fighting climate change
The food sector is producing, depending on how you count, up to 50 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. We can not change all of that. But we make sure, that the piece of land, which we farm on, is sequestering carbon instead of emitting it. For that reason we want to plant shrubs and trees (agroforestry), produce biochar (terra preta), work part of our land with a no-till approuch and want to have a living plant root in the ground for as long and as often as possible (cover crops). Everything that we are going to emitt anyhow, we are going to compensate with moorfutures (https://www.moorfutures.de/).

Biodiversity
It is scientifc consenus that intensive cnventional agriculture is the reason for the dramatic loss of insect populations and diversity. That is reason enough for us to work actively against that. We want to encourage a vivid insect paradise through flowering hedges, flower strips, various habitats and the proactive colonization of wild bee species. But we also want to help birds and amphibians to find a place to live at our CSA. And of course we will not spray pesticides or use synthetic fertilizer.

Community
But this is not going to be a place exclusively for nature. Humans obviously have to play a part in this as well. For that reason we want to invite our CSA members to come around and connect to their food. For example during hands-on-days, a farm get-together or just spontaniously. In addition to that we want to pass on our ideas and experiences to aspiring farmers.

Tell us something about yourself.

The Gemüseinsel, that is Tim and Leon. We met during our studies of organic agriculture at the University of Kassel-Witzenhausen (Hessia). During our time in Witzenhausen we were roommates for a long time and became frieds early on. Next to other topics, vegetable farming was always a shared passion. In the beginning of 2020 we finished our bachelor degree. After that we wanted to hitchike to Mongolia – a big dream of ours since long. But then the corona-pandemic happened. One evening in March we were sitting together at the kitchen table and were thinking about what to do instead. Rather fast we came up with the idea of founding a CSA. Our other big dream. Eight months later our plans have concretized a lot and we are more motivated than ever.

We plant the future, because ...

our ecosystems demand it.

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Niederorschel, DE

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Paderborn, DE

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Witzenhausen, DE

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Frankfurt am Main, DE

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Werl, DE

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Frankfurt, DE

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Frankfurt, DE

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Leipzig, DE

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Asbach, DE

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Orem, US

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Stuttgart, DE

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Witzenhausen, DE

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Leipzig, DE

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Lüneburg, DE