Community-supported agriculture: Wildwuchs works

Community-supported agriculture aims to make environmentally friendly farming possible through shared funding. Friedhard Neumann wanted to know whether it works and visited a farm.

The ‘Wildwuchs Gemeinschaftsgärtnerei’ community market garden is in Leveste, about 15 km west of Hannover, and covers around four hectares – an area the size of six football pitches. Here gardeners devote themselves to organic, vegan cultivation. They grow up to 60 different vegetables through community-supported agriculture, plus fruit trees and berry bushes.

Community-supported agriculture (Solawi) is gaining ground in Germany. A study by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) shows that Solawi farms strengthen their resilience to market and environmental change through community and diverse growing methods.

Critics, however, point out that consumers perceive gluts or the strongly seasonal range as a limitation. Logistics, distribution, communication and internal organisational structures are also criticised at some Solawi farms. Some experts doubt whether community-supported agriculture has a future. They argue that Solawi projects are often started by people without a farming background, which can lead to practical challenges.

The Wildwuchs gardeners are not put off by this and hold fast to their ideals. The association behind the garden is made up of gardeners and consumers who have shared the responsibility, costs and risks of agricultural production since it was founded in 2011. The vegetables are distributed through self-managed depots in and around Hannover. Over the course of the year, members actively help shape the community farm – at members’ meetings, in the fields, in public relations or at the depots.

**Lilly is doing a voluntary ecological year** and is supporting the ‘Wildwuchs’ team this 2023 season. Today she is helping to mix seeds.

**Arne** set up the market garden on his family’s land in Leveste more than 15 years ago.

**The community market garden** largely does without farm machinery. Following the ‘market gardening principle’, the gardeners work the fields using their own muscle power wherever possible. In the background, a tractor belonging to another farm.

**Raising their own seedlings** is a hallmark of organic farming. Among other things, it requires controlled humidity and lighting.

**For sowing**, gardener Greta and her partner Kevin make an exception and use the tractor – the market garden’s fields are spread around the village of Leveste.

**The ‘Wildwuchs’ gardeners** discuss the harvest. Today it’s chard, cauliflower and rocket.

ÄÊ×¦Z3ÁLi'µÈí9$¹mÏÃÅ:|7JÓ|0µ!étÓ ÃTnRÇeÍl7Ä¨E,8î<« ¾Lû.um#IInZ[ë2cZz?V¦¬yñä±ÄÈdËujMF^îF{f;=³46 ¤y+ã»Ðxd·+(tëBF*È5]NÖ_.éXî-åb^1ÁÅªGíVÈDnÎfâ³C³RÕ — **Greta and Kevin** harvesting chard.

**Kevin carries the harvest** on foot to the market garden’s interim store.

**In the interim store** the chard is carefully weighed before it is distributed to members.

**At the independent youth centre ‘Korn’** in Hannover’s Nordstadt, the association’s members collect their share.

**Potato varieties often have women’s names.** Community-supported agriculture is no exception.

**Most of the market garden’s permanent staff** cycle back into town after work. Kevin lives in Hannover-Linden and enjoys unwinding on the ride home along the farm tracks.

**At the summer solstice** Greta and Kevin spend a night outdoors in the countryside and, after the harvest, enjoy being close to nature around the campfire.

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