Nourishing Our Communities – Rural and Urban Platforms for Food Innovation (en) - a podcast by republica GmbH

Awa Caba, Gustaff Harriman Iskandar, Ivan Sawyer Garcia, Peter Volz, Yemesrach Tadesse

New forms of bottom-up agriculture networks based on ucd methods and ict tools bringing urban drivers in dialogue with rural practitioners in order to collaboratively develop more sustainable technological solutions to small-scale farming around the world. Get a bigger picture of diverse contexts by insiders and activists!In this one hour session we want to showcase different initiatives by our partners in Indonesia, Germany, Senegal and Ethiopia:
Indigenous Culture and Rural Techies. Common Room Networks Foundation in Indonesia has over longer times developed a deep relation to the mountain village of Kasepuhan Ciptagelar, based on mutual understanding and respect. This unique ethnic community of West Java maintains self-sufficiency through a complex system of cultural practices inherited through generations. Together with Common Room they now experiment and prototype how to best adapt modern technologies to preserve local cultural knowledge while also improving income. A basic infrastructure of opensource data center powered by autonomous small scale renewable energy solutions enables the community to collaboratively and objectively map their geographic territory.Community Supported Agriculture in Europe and appropriate technologies for alternative strategies. A wide variety of popular movements and activist groups including urban farming, community supported agriculture, permaculture, transition town, etc. have sprung out in recent years to develop alternative forms of agriculture in opposition to the prevailing industrial paradigm. A current research initiative is focused on supporting these groups find and self-create their own open source technologies to make their small scale farming initiatives in Germany both economically competitive and longterm sustainable.
Yeesal Agrihub is a new organization created by 22 young Senegalese activists from different professional background to establish a platform of collaboration around agribusiness and organic food production. To bridge the urban/rural gap, Yeesal is based both in capital Dakar and the rural environment of Thies. They partner with local Universities, NGOs and fablabs to provide a permaculture experimental garden, co-working/ event space and prototyping labs.The general aim is to awaken local youth to the great emergent business and employment opportunities within the agricultural sector through the use of modern digital technologiesHoney or Money! Techhub iceaddis has partnered with agricultural experts in southern Ethiopia to explore the potentials of improving the beekeeping and honey production sector by applying a design thinking multidisciplinary methodology in close cooperation with the actual small scale farming community of the region. The result was an active broad stakeholder network including government, academic, NGO and private sector partners and an impending start-up business idea involving a locally accessible crowd-investment platform for Ethiopian organic honey.
 The featured projects were initially supported by the GIZ Innovation Factory programme in 2015 and 2016. A main aim of the of the programme in the field of rural development and agriculture is the creation of innovative concepts of how technology can benefit small hold farmers in the local context.This initiative is commissioned by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and development (BMZ). The showcases will be presented by the initiatives and moderated by icebauhaus.

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