How to protect orchards by transforming the local resource Apple into high quality products
With our project we contribute to the protection and continuity of orchard meadows.
Orchards have a great value as biotopes that need to be protected. By using the fruits and manufacturing them into more complex products we want to raise awareness for these special places.
We invite everyone to explore and participate in this natural space using their own hands by either planting and pruning trees or taking part in the manufacturing process of apple juice, vinegar or cider.
Local
Germany
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Mainly rural
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Ute Last name: Dreyer Gender: Female 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: Germany Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Lisztstrasse 18 Town: Weimar Postal code: 99423 Country: Germany Direct Tel:+49 1578 0925315 E-mail:u.e.dreyer@gmail.com
First name: Rosalie Last name: Ratz Gender: Female Age: 30 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: Lisztstrasse 18 Town: Weimar Postal code: 99423 Country: Germany Direct Tel:+49 15787079179 E-mail:rosalieratz@gmail.com
Our journey starts as a Sunday walk with friends to get some air and spend time offline. Together we went to collect fallen fruit around our neighbourhood in Thuringia. We encountered lots of orchards with old trees and a huge variety of rare old sorts of apples. We witnessed how nature is recovering and reclaiming former cultivated areas. Years after agricultural use has ended the cultivated area was transformed back into a natural area containing small ecosystems that provide a nutrient soil for rare flora and fauna as well as good edible food - without any negative environmental impact.
Keeping in mind that the maintenance of healthy biotopes ultimately enables the preservation of biodiversity and important habitats, protecting those orchards becomes the guiding principle for our project.
In order to protect the existing trees from being destroyed by mass-agriculture or construction projects as well as using them to obtain a better understanding of its value, we invite people to hands-on workshops.
Our concept focuses on experiencing nature collectively and locally, to harvest carefully, to care for the trees and to further process the apples. By harvesting and processing them, we gain knowledge about traditional crafting, tree care, local and therefore resilient sorts of fruit and new methods of sharing material and immaterial values in a community. The collective work and the useful outcome lead to more awareness and a higher identification with our direct natural environment. From our collected fruits we produce juice, wine, vinegar or cider all of which our workshop participants can use at home and be reminded of their own contribution to nature conservation. As initiators we provide the organisation and the basic professional and technical knowledge for the implementation. The result is a resource-conserving, ecological and social product with a positive impact on the environment - independent from commercial market structures and economic factors.
Preservation of old fruit varieties
Slow food
Refinement of valuable natural products through traditional crafts
Raise awareness for nature and the environment
community/participatory/collective work
Behavioural design/circular economy/Slow food
Along the way, local value chains are made tangible and a transferable understanding of production chains and consumer behaviour is conveyed. The preservation of orchard meadows contributes to the continuation of small-scale land use structures, which are important to maintain local value chains, to be able to sell products regionally, to be able to react individually to climatic challenges and to prevent soil compaction and sealing. The natural habitat of meadow orchards is home to old tree varieties as well as other species of native flora and fauna. Since no fertilisers or pesticides are used here, as is often the case in conventional fruit tree plantations, their continued existence can be ensured.
Both the production of cider or vinegar, as well as the maintenance, breeding and replanting of rare varieties are processes that are created over many years. By participating in each step of the process, the group develops an understanding of how to make food and how to process, distribute and produce it in harmony with nature and in constant exchange with nature. By working with trees that are often almost 100 years old, we learn the importance of being patient and fulfilling work that may only benefit future generations. The interesting thing about our concept is that we can experience the impact of our work at different levels. By pressing the fruit, we obtain juice that we can consume directly. But if we have patience and let it mature over several years, we get additional, special products, such as cider or vinegar, which obtain more complex flavours. When we plant a new tree, we know that it will not give a good harvest for 10-20 years, but it will be there for the little children in the group.
Eco Social Design/Embodiment
The concept focuses on learning through practical experience. There is a high level of identification with the project and its results, as all people contribute their share. Learning about the different processing steps awakens interest and understanding in such processes in other areas of life. It establishes a clear link between the product and nature, which can be experienced in all phases. The processing of apples is a low-threshold offer and has a high social potential. The project regularly results in a positive sense of achievement in the group.
Cultural benefit
Passing on the craft knowledge of processing apples also ensures the cultural preservation of this tradition. Since the project is carried out across generations, there is also a valuable interpersonal exchange. In order to further refine the product and to integrate other groups of people into the project, there is the possibility of integrating local artists with the design of the labels, thus achieving a larger radius of impact.
The raw material - fruit - is available free of charge in many places, as there are numerous owners of orchards who are overburdened with the amount of fruit, but also with the care of the biotopes. We are in contact with some people who would like to become part of such a community project. Since we already have a basic infrastructure for further processing and preserving the apples and are happy to make it available for joint harvesting activities, any interested person without financial means can participate.
After a short introduction, most of the necessary steps can be carried out by people of all ages without prior knowledge. Even though one has to be physically quite mobile for the harvest, people with limited mobility can participate, e.g. in pressing, sorting or filling. Our experience so far has shown that people of all generations enjoy the work.
Enabling design
The project invites active participation and makes it possible to experience a cultural landscape. Experiences in the project so far have shown that people suddenly became interested in the preservation of fruit tree meadows because they approached us, for example, to learn how cider is made. On the other hand, there are people who actively come to us for support in caring for and harvesting their trees and then get involved in further processing methods. In this way people are brought together who otherwise would not have met. The open format creates a participatory dynamic process through which new impulses are constantly being given to the project. There are no limits to creativity in the processing.
The commonly created, local product strengthens the feeling of togetherness of those involved and has a positive identity-building effect on the social fabric of the mostly rural areas.
During the development process of our project/concept, we are in conversation with various actors. These include, on the one hand, nature conservation associations, which provide us with important factors for the preservation of orchards from their perspective. On a local level, we can draw on our personal network of tree pruning experts, landscape architects and cider producers. Also through our involvement in other socio-cultural associations, we have a large network of people interested in community projects and also an established platform to promote this project. Beyond the local level, we are in contact with other cider producers, orchard owners, gardeners and fruit growers. Through this, we have found that our concept could also be realised and resonate in other places.
Crafting
In our project we involve experts in the field of crafting apples and find them helpful as a source of external and additional knowledge if needed (processing apples, pruning trees etc.).
Development of community workshop formats
Our expertise in organising and running community projects and workshop formats is essential so that everyone participating goes home with a positive experience. Furthermore our academic background helps us to deal with methods, like ‘enabling design', ‘eco-social design', ‘circular economy' and ‘behavioural design’. We implement them to structure the concept and use them as tools in order to reach our goals.
Design knowledge
The design knowledge available within our network of creative workers helps to ensure that the end result is a product that adequately represents the quality and value of the original resource.
All mentioned actors contribute their specific knowledge to the group-process. This is essential for our project to work. We meet and exchange within the group constantly and discuss. If we lack profound expertise in a certain point, we invite people for input-panels on those topics.
Comparable projects of processing apples known to us mostly pursue economic interests and thus get into a situation of exploitation of nature more quickly. Pure nature conservation measures require a very high selfless motivation of the members and are often understaffed and difficult to access.
With our project we want to create an easy access to nature conservation by using an apple with all its facades as the key to enter the topic.
Compared to other measures to raise awareness of natural areas, one has a concrete result in the form of a product. A transformation takes place and thus raises awareness of processing methods in agriculture.
The concept also focuses on community work and the understanding of processes - both in the processing of apples as a craft, the preservation of orchard meadows as an important cultural and natural space and on the passing on of collective knowledge.
The format can be transferred to all places where there are available uncultivated fruit tree meadows. Especially in the entire eastern German region there are numerous of these meadows. But also in the south of Europe there are natural areas worthy of similar protection, such as olive groves, to which the methodical approach of the concept can be transferred.
The project tries to find new ways of working with small-scale structures, using local resources sparingly and thus ensuring the preservation of an important ecosystem, establishing a local value chain and providing an alternative to large-scale production. These ecosystems can better respond to climatic changes and challenges. Orchard meadows help to prevent the soil from silting up and drying out and thus provide important protection for the adjacent fields and meadows. By preserving the old trees, important biodiversity is protected. Habitats for displaced animals are also protected.
Environmental protection is a factor of direct education and connection of local people - by explaining these natural spaces as tangible and usable and by providing an understanding of them through independent work, people get more conscious in their consumption decisions.
Using local resources also leads to shorter transport distances and thus has a positive effect on the environment.
