Design Studio
New Ecologies
Spring 2023

AtlasPrototypes: Models of Community-Based Agriculture TodayLeon Bloch, Mira Weingartner, Viktor Jørgensen, Yufei Li, Claudia da Silva Bütikofer, Jonas Zimmermann, Martino Galli, Jennifer Braghetti, Michèle Zeder, Sofia Gloor, Till Blaser, Amélie Lambert, Nadina Häni, Donata De Ieso, and Roman Schürch

What we see today in pioneering initiatives around Switzerland and Europe is an agrarian vision based on organising from below and on commoning land and labour. Alternative farming practices such as Solidarische Landwirtschaft (SoLaWi) or Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) have shown the potential of agroecological approaches to integrate the former passive consumers as active contributors in solidary economies of shared agricultural work and shared risks protecting against changing prices or bad harvests. Despite their social and environmental benefits, such practices currently account for only a tiny fraction of the agriculture in the Canton. Six case studies situated in Germany and Switzerland present a diversity of pioneering models in agriculture in relation to ownership, land and agricultural practice.

Prototypes

DER ACKER BLEIBT
Farm Land Squatting
HERENBOEREN
Large-scale Community-Based Farming
MEH ALS GMÜES
Solawi and Housing
WAGERENHOF
Farming and Care
QUARTIERHOF WYNEGG
Neighbourhood Farm
ACKERSYNDIKAT
Land and farms as commons