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[Music]
and our wonderful speaker for the first
talk of day uh three of this deok is Yia
V and um here you
go thank you very much
so good morning everyone I hope uh
everyone has at least had a bit of
coffee and maybe some tea so we can
start with our talk about Reiko how to
reboot agriculture so I'm actually
sitting on the Swedish Countryside it's
surprisingly Sunny this um morning no
one would have expected that and I was
uh thinking we can talk a bit about
agriculture and what we can do with
that so the thing is
that I'm sorry we are there which should
be uh Reiko is says real
consuma or real consumption in English
and it is actually a movement that
started in Finland originally but that
by now is has kind of spread all over
Scandinavia and uh it's a grassroot
movement so it's basically founded by
the people for the people and organized
by the people so think about that you
want to go to the supermarket and you
kind of want to buy let's say a bunch of
tomatoes and normally it's quite hard to
know where are the tomatoes from what
has been doing done to make tomatoes how
far have they been transported and Reiko
just really cuts out the middle men so
Reiko is your neighbor that grows the
tomatoes is like hi you want to buy
tomatoes from me they're like oh yeah
that would be great that's buy tomatoes
um so and the one of the things with
this kind of markets is I think you
maybe know that from the places where
you live where you have farmers markets
farmers markets are quite a restricted
thing because there's rules and
regulations and it's not really not
everyone can participate you need to
actually be a professional farmer uh the
cool thing with Reiko is that it's
people meeting and exchanging goods but
the actually selling part has happened
before over the internet and since it's
quite hard to regulate a bunch of people
that just meet up and exchange resources
so you kind of at least for Scandinavia
we have found a way to be outside of
those regulations while on the other
side through group control being able to
keep a very good and high standard both
on quality but also like the ecological
side of things and transportation and
all of those um so this is like the
general the general movement then since
it's a grassroot movement there is like
no bigger organization it's basically
when people think oh I want to start one
of those rings then they can just do
that and try it and this is what I did
2019 in a small town called Herby in the
south of Sweden so a bit about Herby
Herby is a small town on the countryside
in Sweden so we are talking like 50,000
people Max let's say lowi income
education it's not that great
conservative structures yes very much I
don't think I need to say how people are
mostly voting here neither so it's not
really a place where you would
expect sustainable change um but since
two in 20 2021 we have come to 2,500
members in this ring and that is
actually really cool so how did we do
that with communication and then you get
all these really nice things as a
sustainable Catalyst where you have
people actually being able to try
because you don't need to be a
professional farmer to be part of riko
group so if you just grow tomatoes and
you have 20 Tomatoes too much you can
actually put up your 20 tomatoes for
sale and try is this actually something
that I would like over this R Group you
can see what are the demands what do
people want what do people
like so and then apparently we are a bit
running out of time already so this is
just showing actually the progress of
when you keep on going and you people
start to talk about and you start
spreading things over social media how
you can get from quite small group to a
quite big group with over 25 people
producing the food and over 2,000 people
being able to buy the
food so what can of challenges do we
have um we have a problem with
accessibility the thing is in in Sweden
these groups are organized over Facebook
groups I don't think here I need to tell
you why that is a problem I would really
love hearing different like how could we
solve that uh I will just say why we
actually choose Facebook because we want
everyone to be able to participate
mainly also older people living on the
countryside that basically the
smartphone they have started to be okay
with that but so much more that's hard
so this really like it is a it is very
difficult to find a good balance between
okay how much how how far can we push
things there uh the same goes for
payment methods in Scandinavia we have
quite easy solutions for that but I know
for example in Germany that that's not
as easy um you need to have a good
location it needs to be big enough so
that actually you can all meet up there
Corona doesn't make that any easier now
you need to have even more space um and
you need to get actually you you need to
get the movement going so you need to
kind of push through a few months maybe
even a year until there's people that
Hur of it and until the talk is around
but then it gets then it then when once
it rolls it's kind of does that fairly
fairly automatic um also you need to
keep the transport efficient so just
because it's small scale scale produced
doesn't mean necessarily that on a cost
on a transportation level it's more
energy efficient so the bigger the ring
gets the more people are coming you
maybe need to find ways to ensure
that
so um yeah so what I kind of want to
just a bit maybe help Inspire is like
think about start more of those Rings
try to get the idea a bit outside of
Scandinavia because it's really cool and
it's generally quite easy thing to do
choose the communication platform think
about maybe find something better than
Facebook uh look at the local laws and
regulations how can you get around that
there should be a way to get around that
and then find people that grow tomatoes
cucumbers maybe someone that has some
chickens or some milk farmer that is
really tired of just being screwed for
their prices of the milk uh yeah and of
course the more products you have and
the more producers the more people will
actually come and buy their food at
those small small scale markets
basically so yeah that was that I
realized that was very little time for a
quite interesting topic but uh if anyone
has questions I think we will take these
after the talk so thank you very
much thank you that was really
interesting um it's a quite radical
approach to uh buying local actually so
um I'm totally
[Laughter]
in um we do not have yet any any
questions in the P so uh for the people
who are already watching The Stream in
the morning um please hop over to the
questions pad you find the link in the
schedule um and uh I have a question um
did you uh have a look into um Solutions
like mobilon or something um
additionally to to Facebook to organize
the groups and and the the events
yeah there is actually an app developed
uh called local food Notch at the moment
where we kind of have hopes that it's
going to be um
a maybe not a replacement but that it
can help on the way um the they have
been doing quite some beta tests and I
hope I hope I hope that maybe by then
next year we can start to implement it
the problem is that local food Notch
Works a bit more like an online store St
so you would need to have people putting
up their products on both sides and um
that is kind of something that we would
like to avoid I think it depends then
also a bit of where is your Market
located if you're actually close to one
of the big cities with a younger um yeah
younger crowd that you want to attract I
think there it's a lot easier um on the
more rural areas
Countryside maybe we and we have talked
about if we should just also have have
it actually on paper that we put up a
paper somewhere and people can just
write up their orders um we'll
see okay so this is um this also um
answers my next question uh for the um
uh the people or your audience that
you're you're trying to reach or the
people to to uh engage um you have um
more older people or more younger people
or is it completely mixed
it's quite mixed but uh I would say it
depends quite much on the location if
yours like in Herby on the countryside
it's a lot of older people and um there
for me that is actually also the kind of
group I want to attract because the
youngers have kind of learned about like
ecological food and uh being a bit more
aware but the older generation still
just goes to the supermarket and buys
their bacon that's produced in Denmark
without really thinking about it and
that is one of the nice things with
Reiko that you actually you build a
connection with the person producing
your food and that can really change
your approach on food completely um so
so so it depends quite a lot on the
location if we have if we talk about for
example Stockholm there the age um is a
lot younger I think there maybe an
average we're around 30 to 40 and I
would say in my in my ring it's the
average is more 50 to
60 so okay um we we do H got questions
in the pth um maybe that one is is quite
fitting um what about analog
Communications like posters Flyers
probably newspapers and so on we have we
have done quite some analog um
communication it's a bit of a challenge
since the people organizing it are n are
often producers or customers as well so
there's not really a budget for actually
marketing but um we could we we got a
hold on quite some some some nice prints
that we were able to print small scale
wise and then it's about this getting
this ball to roll after a while we
actually had the local newspapers were
like oh I've heard that you're standing
there sometimes giving out food so what
is that can we come and um that was that
that I mean if you actually get that
kind of audience that is really amazing
um before we had that and with kind of
no budget existing with analog
communication what I did is basically I
took my bike and then I just drove
around to a lot of small farms and was
like hi have you he heard about this
thing it's called Reiko and do you want
to sell your products and talk to
everyone that did not want to hear about
it but that helped a lot um another
question we got is how do people uh set
their prices uh is there a guidance for
that there is no guidance but since you
have a group of producers and everyone
can see each other's prices it's quite
self-regulating actually um we encourage
as uh the administrators normally have
an eye on that so we kind of encourage
people to take good prices like even if
you just have 20 eggs to sell you can't
go it's really not good if you go with
your prices below the person that
actually is making a living out of that
uh so there's a lot of self-regulation
about that and trying to keep to keep
things kind of level and equal but uh so
far that has been working out quite well
and um with producers and RoR Rings
often they're not only producing for one
ring but for a few in an area of let's
say 50 to 100 kilometers in Sweden at
least uh so then they actually also talk
to each other and to the other rings and
if someone then realiz oh but this
person sells their eggs way too cheap
they actually will kind of be someone
asking them hey could you think about
the pricing of your eggs it's really a
problem for us so for that has been
working out really good and on the other
side if you cut out the middleman you're
able to provide a lot better prices for
E for like for the quality that you
get okay um how do you deal with uh Mish
Harvest versus Pro
prises it's not as much of a problem
because if we compare it for example to
the German oh what is it called um where
you where you're part of a farmer of a
farm basically you you you you buy a
share of a farm um Z land I think you
call it um there you kind of promise
what you're going to deliver with Reiko
you just put up each week you kind of
have a look what can I sell this week
and then you just sell that so if
there's Mish Harvest too bad for the
customer but then that year there's not
going to be that many tomatoes um and
that means that also if you actually get
too much of something you can just put
it off put it up and be like okay I have
a lot [ __ ] ton of tomatoes here you go
so for most people it actually has
turned out that roring is a very good
buffer some of the them that are a bit
further on the Journey of being
full-time Farmers for example they have
some restaurants that they have
contracts with but after the things they
have sold to the restaurant are gone
they're still like oh God so much so
much resources what should I do with
that and then they sell that
record I think we have time for one more
question um have have you thought about
linking it to food waste avoidance as in
getting shops and supermarkets to donate
leftover food to give away or
redistribute redistribute
there I have I have thought about that
especially since uh food sharing is
sadly in Sweden not at all very common
but the thing with donating food gets
you in a legally different spot and um
that is something that we haven't really
figured out a good way to work around it
would need to be very under the radar
because we we are not allowed to sell
food at the spot where we meeting
because then we would be a farmers
market un like an official farmers
market and then we would need to follow
the regulations for official Farmers
marketing so if I'm giving away food
that's kind that is very very on the
edge um so so far we sadly haven't
really figured out a good way to
integrate food waste on a bigger area
I'm hoping that through awareness we're
actually getting somewhere that the
better relationship people get with
their food and with the producers the
more they actually will value food and
the less food food waste they will
produce
hopefully
okay um there's another question for the
price in the path but I think it is
already answered so for the people who
ask it just watch in the uh real life
um uh yeah where unfortunately out of
time it was really interesting uh thank
you very much Julia I hope we'll have
another talk about the topic um at one
of the next C events thank you very much
thank you very much have a good
[Music]
day