*rc3 Vorspannmusik: jast another time in paradise, haecksen*
Herald: Hallo zu dem nächsten stream, der diesmal über unsere Versorgung geht. Und
zwar geht es genau um Reko. Das ist eine Graswurzelbewegung aus Finland, die
Konsumenten und Produzenten zusammenbringt auf kleiner Ebene um dort einen Einfluß auf dem
Markt zu gewähren. Julia wird diesem talk in englisch halten. Anschließend gibt es
noch einen kleines Q&A, das ist im Raum Ada, da müsst ihr dann rüberwechseln. The
folowing talk will be held in english. The talk is about Reko, it is an agricultural
grassroot Movement from Finnland. It brings together consumers and the
producers of the goods on the direct way without the mean of market stopping inbetween. I
hope lot of new information in this talk. Let's start with it.
Julia: So hi, everyone. My name is Julia Westberg, and I would like to talk about
how to hug agriculture today. Well, more specifically about how to create small
scale, self administrated farmer markets, and the concept is called Reko. So let's
have a look. Oh, very shortly about me. I'm an environmental scientist, an
engineer living in Sweden on a small farm, growing a few vegetables, having some
chickens, and I have been organizing a Reko group for the last three years. My
favorite vegetable to grow is pumpkin eggplants. And yeah, so farming is an
interest of mine, but I'm not a professional farmer or doing that full
time. I will get back to that detail later. And what is Reko? Well, Reko means
really konsumption hole or could translate to real consumption, and it is a concept that
came originally from Finland, but has now spread to almost all of Scandinavia. I
have a small map there that sadly only includes the Swedish markets. We didn't
find a good comprehensive map that includes Finland and Norway as well. The
basic ingredients of Reko market or group or however to refer to them, is the direct
contact between the customer and the person that produced the food. So it is a
small grassroots movement, so it started from farmers and it's basically very
unrestricted growing food, selling it directly to people that want to eat it.
And there is no actual transactions or, well, there's no selling at the meetings.
The selling happens before online and that is why it doesn't fall under restrictions
of farmers markets. Because if you want to sell at least in Scandinavia, if you want
to sell on a farmers market, that is quite a lot of effort to make it to like get
certifications and to meet certain requirements. And that is hard for small
scale farmers or, for example, for people that just have a big garden and some
overproduction. So that makes Reko different and interesting. So Reko groups
are self organized and they're independent of each other. So as you can see on the
map, there's quite a few, though they are independent of each other. There is a
national wide community for support. So a lot of the people that help administrating
those groups are then in a bigger group, where they can all talk about issues that
have occurred in the groups or ask how other groups handle situations. But it is
important to point out that every group makes their own rules and decides how to
handle things on their own. There is a bit of help. Like, for example, there has been
material for, for example, the graphical stuff available from people that wanted to
share that. So then there is, of course, experience from neighbor communities
normally, that where you can turn to and ask for help. But essentially, every small
Reko group is, a bunch of people deciding that, Hey, our village or our town should
have something like this. Let's do it. So, I mean, why should you have something like
this? You want something like this because you want to know where your tomato is
coming from, right? Or at least I think that starting to get more important for
people again. So for the consumer here and with the consumer, I mean, that is, well,
you that's wanting to buy tomatoes. It's really easy to get super fresh seasonal
food because the farmers are selling what they have produced this week, maybe even
that day. And you can meet the producer like, you know, that loss has been growing
your tomatos. And you know how loss is actually what loss? You can ask loss what
is using for treatments on his tomato plants as a use again pesticides. And that
makes it really interesting and you get unique products. So the farmer maybe wants
to try new sorts or specialies old sorts and all sorts that are really hard to get by.
And so you can get really this unique products that are really interesting and
make for such exceptional food. But a supermarket wouldn't be able to provide
you with that, because some supermarket needs to provide thousands of it. And
another plus side is really short, transportation's. Reko is very much built
on local. So hopefully the tomatoes that you're buying are just coming from the
village next. Well, next door, basically. And that also means that there's a lot
less waste. You don't need to package things in plastic. You can recycle. You
can recycle bags. Yeah, it it just makes it a lot more efficient. And why should
you do it? Why should you do it as a farmer? Well, as a farmer, you have the
you have it's really it's an easy way to get started. For example, if you stay with
the tomatoes, maybe someone just has had a lot of tomatoes one year and wants to try.
How is working out selling the tomatoes and not just giving them away for free?
And it's it doesn't cost anything to sell food in the Reko group, so you can just
put out your tomatoes and be like, Hi, I'm selling tomatoes, and that can be the
start. It was also quite time efficient because there's no middlemen. You don't
need to meet up with someone else first, and then they will give it to the
customers you meet directly up with your customer and handing them the food that
they have been buying from you. So that's very practical. Another point is that you
can easily sell to positive customers, and that might be not as selfexplanary as the
other ones, because the positive attitude towards food, I think, is really can be
really motivated for farmers and small scale farmers that work really hard for
the products they love. Not really. Quite. Yeah. Driven people that really want to
provide great food. And it's really amazing when you can then actually sell it
to people that are equally interested. So that, yeah, that's cool. And you can also
try out new products quite easily. So as you can tell, you can grow the specific
kind of vegetable or you can try to make the specific kind of cheese. And then you
can see, are people interested that were worth actually producing that permanently
or, well, didn't that really turn off that great and people that weren't interested
then? It's not the end of the world because you can just just make small trial
run. And the last thing on here on the slides, but of product planning is
important as well. Because one of the Reko groups, you know, in advance how actually
how much you're going to sell that day. And that makes it a lot easier to plan.
And on the other side, it also the groups can help you, like I said, with
overproduction. So if you have a lot more than you can, just try to sell it over the
group, but easier than ever with supermarkets. So yeah, that is basically a
very, very positive things with the Reko groups and say, let's have a look. That's
how it's. But I slept there. Yeah. So the Reko group that I have been administrating is
in a small village called Tybee. It's a lower income area, quite conservative
structures. And by 2021 we have yeah, 2130 members. And we started in 2019. So. Why
did I mention the small village, low income area, conservative structures?
Well, basically to tell you that if it works in horby, it can work almost
everywhere *laugh* because of the structures here people are not. It's not.
It's not a hip area. It's not where like ecological food is driving force.
It's not like that. But like I mentioned earlier, Reko groups make it possible to
connect with people and to connect to food producers from the area. And I think that
that is really important and that that has made a big impact. And when we started in
2019, there were basically we started with five people that grew a bit of food and
maybe 10 people that felt a bit sorry. So they came. But, Consistency and getting
out the world, basically telling everyone that they should check out this group and
that paid of. So that is that's quite quite a success, I would say, although
there is, of course, it's not really all, it's just easy. What was really important
for this group was to get a diversity of products that can be a bit difficult
because, well, people want to buy more than just tomatoes. So to get farmers
interests that sell different products is really crucial for these kind of groups to
work. Here's a small comparison that hopefully illustrates that despite having
well, not as well as wealth a parking lot in 2020, we actually haven't gotten a lot
bigger from just 2019 to 2020. I realize I didn't have a good picture from 21, so to
do. Yeah, and one of the important things here that people talk with each other and
it's like, you see the farmers are actually coming in their cars and just
delivering the products. So because there can't be any official sales on the spot,
you don't need any market stance or anything like that. You just need a kind
of fast meet up. Normally, the meetings are around 30 minutes, sometimes an hour.
Exchange products. People may make sure everyone is paid and then you're good to
go. So it's also rather the real. The in- person meetings are rather rather fast.
And talking a bit about challenges. Well. Like I said, Reko is based on online that
people make their orders, so. I have a first point accessibility, but I could
also easily name that in choosing the right platform. In Sweden most of the Reko
groups are Facebook organized, which well, is not optimal, but it is very easy
accessible for most people and we haven't been. We have been trying to find a better
working platform to find a better working solution and haven't really succeeded so
far. The point is also that a lot of customers for these Reko groups, at least
in the rural areas on countrysides, are like 50 and upwards and not very technical
interested. So basically, the internet itself was a big step for this people, and
now they have slowly understood how well this one platform works. So it's what
works for them. And yeah, that's definitely a really big challenge, because
it makes the movement quite dependent on this platform, which is definitely not
ideal. Another challenge can be payment methods. In Sweden, we have a
system that makes it very easy to transfer money between people with wireless. But I
know that, for example, in Germany, that's not as easy. We have a bit of cash that
people people can normally pay in cash as well, but basically no one wants to do it
anymore. But making sure payment works is a thing and, well, a lot is really based
on trust. So upholding trust is also very important within those groups. And you
need to have a good location, because when you're meeting was like a sad, like
25 producers can easily can. So 25 farmers coming and then maybe
a 100 people only on a day that on an evening that's that's quite good,
quite good. But that also needs space. And yeah, you need to make sure that you have
a place where it's OK to park for half an hour an hour and to have this amount of
people, of course. But we found that rather easy because, there was a lot of
companies or just institutions that were like, Oh yeah, right, we have a big
parking lot. You can use that. So ask around. And while I was around, I mean,
then it's also very easy to talk to people and just tell them about this group and
try to spread the word. That comes to another challenge, which is, yeah, getting
the ball rolling, really getting around things formation let people know that this
group exists. Let other farmers know that this group exists, but as well. Tell.
People, everyday people, your parents, your grandmother, your neighbors, your
colleague, tell everyone that these groups exist and spread the word. And one last
point of challenges is keeping transport efficient, because the more the group
grows, the further farmers kind of are willing to drive to sell the products have
a very successful group, maybe, let's say, 50 kilometers away. Maybe it starts to get
interesting to me to actually go there. And I think it's important to stay true to
the values of efficient transportation. And by that, to quite close you to the
mission by making sure that transport is managed efficiently and with as little
resources as possible. But I mean, here here, it's absolutely possible to find
flexible solutions. Maybe some farmers actually can take a hitch a ride together
or something like that. And I know that there is also there have been groups that
have restricted farmers to a certain range around the town or village there from to
make sure that that really stays local. And talking about those restricting
someone, normally those Reko groups are really open, but of course it is a bit of
a bit difficult where you draw the line for small scale production. And yeah, when
is a farmer maybe too big, maybe to too much into the commertional production to
really still should be a part of it? That is definitely an issue that needs to be
addressed within the group. But normally you have more than one person managing a
group and like I said, there is a support net, so you're not alone of this kind of
decisions. So what I want to say is, bild more Reko, maybe try to actually get into
Germany, try to get it going there. It's basically quite easy to start. You need to
have a look into local laws and regulation. I was hoping I could do that
before this talk, but I realized that my knowledge of German law is. Well, yeah, *
laugh* not not sufficient for that task. And, but have a look, I really want to
believe that there is a way to make it work and then choose a communication
platform. Choose a good platform and be aware that most likely the platform you
choose from the start will be the platform that you will use for this group. Onwards,
we have had a few groups in Sweden that try to change communication platform after
a while, and that was very hard for them. So be mindful about it and think about it.
And. Then, of course, you need to have farmers that are interested in being a
part of it, and you need to have farmers that want to sell their goods, that are
well motivated to be a part of really, really cool thing. And like I said before,
you want to have a wide range of products and producers. So the more diversity, the
better. Of course, there is always seasonal changes. For example, my tomato
example is kind of a bad example because there's just so short time in the year
where actually local farmers can provide tomatoes, of course. But. Find
farmers that are interested and then talk about what products are possible. We have
realized the farmers very often just very resourceful of finding alternatives what
they can sell in the winter, and that's there's a lot of innovation actually
coming from that. That is really cool to see. And yeah, that's basically what you
need for starting a Reko group. There would definitely be the possibility to get
support from the Scandinavian communities and see how they're doing and maybe just
try to start your own thing. And *laugh* I realize I'm actually today super fast with
this talk. So I'm already at my sources. So I was thinking of actually skipping
this a bit backwards to. Let's go to my first line and talk a bit more a bit more
about the impacts for both farmer, for the farmers, and that is, we have noticed that
a really strong. A really strong, a bit unexpected force that happened with these
groups is the networking effect, because it helps small scale farmers and people
that are just hobby producers to connect and to meet once, twice a week on this, on
this group meetings give their product to the customer and then maybe, say, 5 or
10 more minutes and just chat for each other and be like, Oh, how is this going?
Oh, how would you deal with that? How are your chickens doing? And well, that sounds
a bit trivial, but it actually makes a lot of difference, because it helps people to
connect with their neighbors, a bit more far away neighbors with people that have
similar interest in producing really great food. And it creates a community that is
really, really resourceful, supporting and inclusive. And I found that really
interesting that even in herby, with this rather conservative population, it's
really worked. And that was a very, I think, very healing, almost healing
program, process for that village to really see like, Oh, there's so many
people around here by now making amazing food, growing organic vegetables and being
curious about that. So this really networking effect is super cool and
something that we maybe didn't expect to happen that strongly. And of course, it
works for the consumers as well. They have started to like the people coming to the
group started to see it. A bit of a social event, though. Well, we all know, what also
happened 2020. So the social aspect has been no, we were in need of trying to
minimize that as much as possible. But still, it's networking is a very big part
of the entire thing. I'm yeah, 2020 pandemic. I actually didn't do an extra
slide about it because I assumed everyone was tired of that already. But from a Reko
group perspective, it actually did not that much damage. We were never in the
situation in Sweden, where the regulations would have for would have forbidden to
have our meetings to exchange the products. So it was more like people
realized, Oh, this is outside. Oh, here, it's really easy to keep your distance
because there's not so many people and oh, I can still buy super fresh food, even if
I don't dare to go into a supermarket. So actually, the pandemic has brought more
customers to the Reko groups, which was a bit unexpected in the beginning, but
really, really fun and really cool. And now we will see, it's always a bit like a
seasonal thing because winter here is not at least in Sweden, not as snowy as one
wants to believe. It's a lot of rain and windy, and people are not that motivated
to actually go out and pick up their food. So in winter, normally it's a bit of less
activity and then picking up on spring weather. Yeah, about the peak in summer
and early autumn, when there is such a wide range of products available. So there
is always a bit of the seasonal fluctuation in how many people are
attending. But that's that's just the way it is. Let's say. Yeah. So there was a lot
of good reasons why to actually have these Reko groups and. I would really it would
be really interesting if that would happen to peer groups in Germany. When I did this
talk, the last time I got a question, if it was comparable to solawi(solidarische
Landwirtschaft), which I thought I could talk a few shortly about. It has some
similarities, but I would say the Reko groups are a lot easier accessible for
farmers than the solawi. So it's basically everyone can participate. There is not a
lot of limitations to what you need to be able to do to sell food on the market. I
mean, of course, you need to follow guidelines about food safety and so on.
But you don't need to be able to promise to be able to deliver, for example, eggs
all year round. It's totally OK to be there just three or four times per year
and the rest of the year, you just don't have enough eggs. And so the customer are
saying different to a solawi, how I've understood it. You don't need to like,
have a contract and guaranteeing how much you're buying every month so you can stay
flexible if it's the end of the month and there's really more months left than money
in your bank account, then you just don't buy from the group. Maybe just that time,
but next time you're very welcome to. So in my eyes, solawi maybe to a farmer more
long term solution, more of the more stable income situation. But the Reko
groups who would allow for a lot more flexibility and. It's easier to get
started. Yeah.*laugh* I only took with me the positive points, then I sometimes get
asked, Oh, but isn't it really expensive to buy so well produced food? And the
answer is yes and no. Of a lot of products will be more expensive than in a
supermarket. But because you buy directly from the farmer, the farmers are still
able to make good prices for really amazing products. So they actually get the
money they need to be to, to work, to make a living from it. And you still it's it's
still affordable and because there is exchange between the groups. There's also
a bit of a control about costs because the farmers basically need to kind of keep an
even level if there's someone selling eggs, so certain prize. And there's three
other people selling a lot cheaper eggs that will be a discussion between the
farmers to actually come to come to an agreement on a fair price for the eggs and
that self regulate all the regulatory procedure. It's really a great thing. So
from an administrative point of view, I, well, my group, we were never in need of
telling someone, you should change your prices or something that is normally taken
care of more or less by itself and by the people limit. So like, yeah, like most
grassroots movement, it really is living from the people and need some engagement,
of course. But once that is rolling, it's really, really great construct, I would
say, in a really great thing to do. Yes. Say you and some sources and there one is
called who's holding okat hopp, which is an organization in Sweden that is
basically something between a club and some kind of political. How to say that
political ministry? Hmm. *laugh* I'm actually not really sure about the
translation there, but they had gotten some money from a European Union fond to
look into these Reko groups and see how that could support the rural areas and
countryside in Sweden and how farmers could benefit. So they were helping out a
bit like I mentioned earlier with graphic material. And yeah, provided provided some
information. 2020 that man money ran out and I think they are no longer providing
any kind of help. But since their help was very little from the beginning, it doesn't
seem to affect the groups at all. I would say so. It was definitely it was nice that
it was there, but I wouldn't say that some kind of support from governmental support
is definitely not necessary to be successful with these groups. Yeah, that
was my talk for today, I hope I will see everyone later for the Q&A and would be
really great to chat about this. So have a good evening and see you later.
Herald: Yeah, done. Sage ich noch mal danke schön,
thank you for watching. That was a very interesting talk
about how to install influence on ISO or consumer. Oh, if you have any further
questions you can visit chat in events. Haecksen the awesome ADA ATM. You can also
use the QR code in this window here on at the right side to get into the room where
you can place your questions. Wenn ihr noch weitere Fragen habt, dann kommt in den Raum
. Hex and org slash AIFS Awesome, wonderful Ada . Da werden weitere Fragen beantwortet.
Thank you to Julia and
hopefully see you on the Q&A section. Getting over there. Thank you.
*rc3 Nachspannmusik*
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