Iztok Erjavec and Klemen Bizjak, co-founders of Intercer, had a conversation in year 2013 about the worsening of social situation in Europe. Iztok, who works on landscape ecology research for master study has mentioned that there are many older people living in the countryside that possesses agricultural land and knowledge of the sustainable multipurpose farming that took place in the past, but cannot work on land due to their age and suggested that they should be joining forces with unemployed people in towns to grow food. They can teach unemployed people about organic agriculture through practical work on their land and share harvest.
LAND SHARING FOR FOOD AND SOCIAL GOOD
Integration and empowerment of disadvantaged groups for the local food production
What if cooperative local organic food production could aid in the improvement of intergenerational social good?
We see a huge opportunity to provide a regional market with localy grown organic food and goods for home needs. The Slovenian market with organic food is in the development phase, consequently there is not enough organic food as the market demands. Official statistics in Slovenia show there is around 2300m2 of cultivated agricultural land per capita. Around 3000m2 would be needed to provide the necessary amount of food.
We have a new way of providing long-term supply with fresh local organic food at a regional level by introducing a intergenerational social cooperative. This will enable steady supply of organicaly grown foods. With the reintroduction of old farming practices that took place in the past we want to preserve small multifunctional farms. On this type of farms more than one agriculture practice took place. If a farm produces more than one product, the income is not dependet on one product, especially if extreme weather events due to a climate change accure. Directly a steady income is distributed through the whole year. This means that also the customers’ needs with local organic food and goods are covered through the whole year. For example, in winter they can buy preserved food with traditional methods of conservation. With the introduction of intergenerational social cooperative we will achive long-term supply from small farms.