Storytelling and Network for a future-proof agriculture
„Farmfluencers" are farmers that practise regenerative and sustainable agriculture. The project aims to establish an inspiring audiovisual storytelling of their work, bridge the gap between farmers and citizens, and encourage both to take responsibility for their land. This growing network of „Farmfluencers“ supports farmers to break unknown ground together. By increasing attention to their work, the project fosters a growing number of community-based agriculture in urban areas.
National
Italy
Region of South Tyrol
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Meike Last name: Hollnaicher Gender: Female Age: 28 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Germany Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Rencio 16 Town: Bolzano Postal code: 39100 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 375 541 7641 E-mail:meike@farmfluencers.org Website:https://www.farmfluencers.org/
First name: Thomas Last name: Schaefer Gender: Male Age: 29 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Italy Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Bergstraße 53 Town: Eppan an der Weinstraße Postal code: 39057 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 351 652 1282 E-mail:info@farmfluencers.org Website:https://www.farmfluencers.org/
„Farmfluencers" are farmers that practise regenerative and sustainable agriculture. The project aims to establish an inspiring audiovisual storytelling of their work, bridge the gap between farmers and citizens, and encourage both to take responsibility for their land. This growing network of „Farmfluencers“ supports farmers to break unknown ground together. By increasing attention to their work, the project fosters a growing number of community-based agriculture in urban areas.
Those who take on a pioneering role in agriculture and pursue sustainability, future viability and regeneration as their highest goals are often lonely fighters in the local monoculture. Therefore, in the pilot region of South Tyrol, we have formed a network of young agricultural revolutionaries from South Tyrol and neighbouring regions. We organize network meetings and want to establish them with different characters about three times a year: Lectures with speakers, farm tours for inspiration and a harvest festival to celebrate the community.
We tell the stories of the "Farmfluencers" on our social media channels, in a podcast and in short films. These are digitally accessible and bilingual. We are located in the pilot region of South Tyrol in a bilingual region where German and Italian are the official languages. Besides the big gap between agriculture and urban areas, which we can observe all over Europe, there is an additional language barrier, because in the city mainly Italian is spoken, in the countryside mainly German. We organize film screenings at various events (research institutions, youth centers, festivals) and would like to take a feature-length film to the cinema in the future. We organize discussion groups to make agriculture in urban areas a topic again to foster the creation of CSA's.
This project is based on Meike Hollnaicher's master's thesis, which she completed com laude in November 2020 at the Free University of Bolzano in the Eco-Social Design program.
agriculture
sustanability
community supported agriculture
regeneration
climate action
We want to:
- promote regenerative agriculture/carbon farming and biodiversity. Acting sustainably is not enough anymore, we have to regenerate what has been lost. We do this providing encouraging information and emotional inspiration for change.
- improve the network of pioneers in agriculture to increase mechanisms of mutual support. We do this through the organisation of physical network meetings and exchange of digital contacts.
- close the gap between urban citizens and farmers, and to create awareness of the agricultural products and closed loop systems. We do this through the bilingual realization of the project and our presence at public events. Our emotional shortmovies bring (mountain-)farmers to the city and have the power to foster discussion and exchange with the aim to increase the number of Community Supported Agriculture-groups.
The project can be exemplary because:
- it has the potential to grow beyond the borders of the pilot region South Tyrol. It could be established in other Italian regions, but thanks to our multilingual approach also in our neighbouring countries Austria, Switzerland and Germany.
- it is the first one in the region that brings the agricultural world to the urban citizens (outside of the context of tourism) through being bilingual.
- it is the only one in the region that communicates local agriculture in a "sexy" way and makes it attractive for young people and future farmers.
- it reacts faster than public or agricultural institutions and brings innovative ideas to the region. Either from outside or also from inside the local community.
We want to raise awareness outside of this niche and we want to communicate an interesting and honest approach to agriculture that also gives space to challenges and failures. The aim is to touch people emotionally and give positive impulses.
There is a certain range of colour and wording around the topic of agriculture. Everything is natural, green, sustainable or even romantic. Also, conventional farming is often communicated in the same way. We created a strongly colourful design that seems rather young than eco. It is combined with aesthetic documentary photography.
We use direct and provocative wording in our communication and keep it very down to earth to make our information accessible. Our podcast gives information, but is designed in an informal way and tells the touching life story of the "Farmfluencer" rather than only facts. Our short movies come with highest visual quality, subtitles in 1-3 languages, and an emotional and motivating life story. We are not staging a written storyline, but we give the farmers time to express and say out loud what would have never thought could be of interest also for others. Our content is not perfect and we give space to spontaneous and unconventional moments. We want to create empathy among farmers and citizens, so we tell true emotional life stories of farmers.
Our workshops during network meetings are designed in co-creation processes and design thinking methods which are new to most practitioners in agriculture, but fit very well to their ability of making rather than academic reading/listening.
The concept can be exemplary because it gives voice to people that do not have strong communication skills, but are creating the base of human life. Furthermore, the combination of design and agriculture becomes more a more important to face climate crisis and design tools can be really helpful to break out of traditions, or to reinvent them.
As stated, the concept aims to include all local cultures by using both languages spoken in the area. The educational network meetings are always organized in community which means that the project itself should cover costs for speakers, but the rest is offered by the community to enable also persons with less opportunities to participate in the events (everyone welcome, free entry). The people that join the network are asked to commit to LGBTQ* friendly and non-racist behaviour. The women have an important role of innovators in this network.
The digital content is accessible online for everyone. The movies come with subtitles.
The concept can be exemplary, because it gives the possibility to rethink the world of agriculture, access to land and the overall picture a farmer hast to fit in.
Citizens in urban areas are affected by being invited to create empathy with farmers and soil. Once empathy is created, they can take responsibility for their land and support local farmers and rethink their consumer behaviour. Furthermore, we're receiving invitations to show the short movies on congresses, public meetings or events to start the dialogue about agriculture and locally produced food.
The farmers themselves are already involved by suggesting a growing number of new farming projects that are in line with the "Farmfluencers" and can become part of the network. It is known, that our project already inspired young people to try new paths in agriculture and to realize the eco-social transformation on their family farms. Furthermore, we received a request of farmers that would like to bring our project to their region outside of South Tyrol.
The Free University of Bolzano supported the project through supervision of experts coming from agriculture, design research, anthropology and sociology.
The regional "Bergbauernhilfe" (Help for mountain farmers) gave the project initiators access to ethnographic research by inserting them in their volunteering project on mountain farms.
The project initiators are in consistent exchange with the regional innovation department of the local farmer's union and with the union of organic farmers.
The fair of Bolzano gave the project a stage during their important agricultural fairs.
Local youth associations (Jump, Caritas) included the project in their sustainability programs.
BASIS Vinschgau Venosta, a social activation Hub included the project in their Event program.
The regional Association for nature and environmental protection became a partner of the project.
The project is part of "Climate Action" a group of different organizations that are fighting climate crisis.
A group of farmers from different backgrounds and countries contributed to the research process through giving interviews.
Meike grew up on a traditional family farm, so she brought her knowledge about agriculture and its challenges into the project as well as her long-term experience in the communication business. She is trained in graphic design and communication. Thomas is trained as a chef, photographer, and Videomaker. He brought also working experience in agriculture (market gardening) to the project. Both, Meike and Thomas are passionate in the fight against climate crisis and wanted to use their digital skills to promote an agriculture that they would like to see in the region they live in. By creating a network of stakeholders and farmers, they were able to translate solutions to our current challenges in the agri-food-system into something tangible and accessible for everyone.
Mainstream actions in the field of urban citizens and agriculture are focused on farm holidays and other form of tourism. They serve only the marketing purposes of a capitalist system. "Farmfluencers", instead, does not want to advertise products, but promotes a new, sustainable agriculture without being paid for this work. Also, the social media content of the local farmer's union serves to create a certain image which is in line with very conservative political beliefs. Especially in South Tyrol, there is no official critical voice in the media around agriculture, because it's a very important sector for the region. The representatives of monoculture in apple and milk production are very strong.
Moreover, the project "Farmfluencers" is the only one that also fosters physical meetings between farmers and urban citizens. They do need each other more than ever to create local closed loop economies to ensure food security.
The project could be replicated if at least a team of two volunteering people in other region takes the responsibility to carry on the project. Ideally a team of three. One expert from agriculture, one expert in communication and facilitation, one expert in content creation. To establish the project in another region, the team doesn't need high quality equipment at first, but should be trained well in high quality aesthetics. Similar to new agricultural methods such as market gardening also the "Farmfluencers" project is low tech and low input oriented.
Even more important than the communication and content creation work is the research on potential "Farmfluencers" who are willing to become a group of farmers that want to break unknown ground together, to meet regularly and to commit to mutual help. The potential "Farmfluencers" are usually young, solution-seeking people who can be caught best through farmer's markets, social media or mouth-to-mouth advertising. Also, local stakeholders such as farmer's unions can be helpful. The team should have a look for award-winning young talents or agricultural start ups. Then the team should evaluate if they share the same with the project.
The project-team should create strong and personal relationships with the potential "Farmfluencers" to be able to tell their stories in an emotional and honest way and to engage them in network meetings. This works best if you demonstrate the farmers that you want to understand their situation. It's useful to spend some days with farmwork.
Agriculture has strong effects of the climate crisis we're living in. Soil and land degradation, deforestation, biodiversity loss, pest problems, industrial and agricultural waste, irrigation, livestock grazing, chemical fertilizer, removing of shading are just a few keywords that contribute to the climate crisis, poverty and inequality. Our concept addresses these challenges by locally promoting regenerative and future-proof agricultural and social solutions. The project contributes also to the improvement of the local agri-food-system by fostering mutual empathy between urban citizens and farmers and to improve the conditions for community supported agriculture groups. Food sovereignty as well as fair wages for farmers are the positive effects.
