Presentation given by Dan Keech at 'Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration' (Riga, Latvia)

1. Folie 1Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Dan Keech (CCRI)
Marc Redepenning (OFU)
Riga, 13.10.2017
City horticulture – rural
identity: on culture and
culturalisation in
Bamberg, Bavaria

2. Folie 2Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Literature on urban agriculture
(UA) and alternative (food)
movements
UA: an area of deepening research and practice, covering issues
and narratives including:
• UA potential to contribute to self-sufficiency in the global
south (RUAF 2015); UA as a way to tackle food security
associated with substantial rural-urban migration in mega-cities
(e.g. food policies in Medellín); UA planning for Smart Growth
(Maye 2016).
• UA as a policy response to urban sustainability (Wiskerke &
Viljoen 2012, Sonnino 2016; food policies for Milan, Bristol,
London, Sustainable Food Cities network …).
• UA spatial and functional distinctions – peri-urban
(commercial) vs. urban (social) (Opitz et al. 2016).
• UA and social movements (Tornaghi 2014, Reed and Keech
2016); AFN as social movements introduce social innovations
to regions and communities (Kirwan et al 2013, Pleyers 2017).
Own pics

3. Folie 3Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Backgrounds of co-operation
between CCRI and OFU Bamberg
• Relatively few studies on provincial city and small and medium-sized
cities (although they represent the majority urban scale in the EU). These
cities often have complex (and sometimes complicated) rurban identities
(Redepenning 2010/2018).
• Studies of urban horticulture concentrate on political, economic and
technical contexts. The socio-cultural dimension is usually missing. We
have tried to address this gap through our research, and our presentation
reflects the cultural insights demanded in the Call for Papers.
• Purpose of our co-operation was to extend the technical results of
SUPURBfood (www.supurbfood.eu), and explore socio-cultural and
political aspects of urban horticulture in Bamberg (and Bath).

4. Folie 4Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
The aim of this talk
Today we will focus solely on results from Bamberg and ask:
• How does urban horticulture and the ‘culture of urban horticulture’ shape local identity and
community in Bamberg?
• How is ‘culture’ productive or counter-productive to co-operation and to the future of urban
horticulture?
• What is the role of alternative food networks and how are they renewing cultural meanings
and contributing to cultural change?
In discussing the specific situation of Bamberg, we use a very limited and maybe even ideal-type
example to show the complexity of culture and the different forms of culture (‘cultures’),
which are enacted by local systems and which perform culture in distinct ways.
We identify four kinds of culture relevant to urban horticulture in Bamberg.

5. Folie 5Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Urban horticulture in Bamberg:
• Bamberg has around 74,000 inhabitants.
• Strong culture and tradition of small-scale urban
agriculture (in terms of commercial urban horticulture)
from the 14th century on (Scheinost 2009)  The
Gärtnerstadt (divided into Upper and Lower Gardeners’
City, see pics on right).
• This ‘food space’ (Parham 2015: 71) as a spatial quality
and local identity has developed over centuries and
serves (although small and privately owned) as ‘rural
green space’ in the city.
• Local varieties still available (garlic, savoy cabbage,
onions, potatoes, radish, liquorice), but many other
varieties have vanished since the 1960s.
Untere Gärtnerstadt. Source. Bing maps
Obere Gärtnerstadt. Source. Bing maps

6. Folie 6Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Urban horticulture in Bamberg
• Still around 20-25 family-owned urban gardeners in
the traditional Gärtnerstadt (some below 1 ha, most
of them have 3-4 ha, max. 20ha). Larger fields are
also located outside the centre (in the “Nordflur”)
but still within the city‘s boundaries.
• Products are sold directly from the nurseries but
also in limited scales available in local gastronomy
and supermarkets: for example, one organic
gardener (~3ha) delivers to two local supermarkets
(REWE group), to one upmarket restaurant and
one alternative soup restaurant.
Commercial urban horticulture in Bamberg. Source Pic below:
Zentrum Welterbe Bamberg. Photo: Jürgen Schraudner

7. Folie 7Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Urban horticulture in Bamberg:
culturalisation as heritage
• The Gärtnerstadt is partly protected by local land-use plans which
preclude conversion of this area into buildings and prescribe its
use for urban horticulture (professional or self-provisioning).
• The Gärtnerstadt forms part of Bamberg’s UNESCO World
Heritage designation (since 1993) because of the ancient
structures of UA (http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/624/).
• In Dec. 2016 the inner city horticulture in Bamberg was included in
the German UNESCO list for intangible cultural heritage
(“horticulture accompanied by various social, religious, and
corporate traditions of the gardeners”).
 “Culture I”: official ‘culturalisation’ of Bamberg’s urban
horticulture. Culture understood as a bundle of practices, habits,
traditions and spatial structures that is deserving protection and
societal care (material and symbolic heritage culture).
Above: Obere Gärtnerei. Source. Bing
maps
Below: City of Bamberg, Bebauungsplan
B236, April 2017

8. Folie 8Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Urban horticulture in Bamberg:
the gardeners and their identity
• Strong family traditions and a renewed integration into the
urban (political) life: membership of city council etc.
• Festivals, museums and religious traditions form part of the
city’s identity.
• Together with Bamberg’s 10 breweries, food forms part of
Bamberg’s urban spatial identity as these spaces are often
places of consumption for local inhabitants (and tourists, too).
 “Culture II”: Culture for the gardeners is a set of (not
reflected and ‘invisible’) routines and traditions which shape
identities, mostly in a conservative (and backward-looking)
form which pulls self-worth from an ancient (highly respected)
position in the local community. But that doesn’t fit with recent
realties and inhibits social and economic innovation;
Yet, there are exceptions to this rule producing a local counter-
culture within the overall gardener’s culture (see below).
Fronleichnamsprozession (Feast of
Corpus Christi) of the Obere Gärtnerei
2014 (with Maria Magdalena patron saint of
the Gardeners)
Source. http://www.bamberger-
onlinezeitung.de/2014/07/24/maria-
magdalena-schutzheilige-der-gaertner-
wegen-eines-irrtums/

9. Folie 9Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
The Gardeners: culture, co-
operation and non-cooperation
• This culture of urban horticulture still poses an obstacle to co-
operation: for example, Bamberg’s gardener fraternities are
ancient and of exclusive rivalries, notably between the Obere
and Untere Gärtnerstadt.
 strong integration in own faction but weak integration and
co-operation to other gardeners and their associations.
• Problem of path-dependent production without market
observation: ‘As the nurseries became less flexible, the more
difficult their commercial positions became and more jealousy
and rivalry emerged. Co-operation suffered and it surprised us
that almost no personal contact existed between gardeners and
that cross-trading was dormant.’ (WH)
• Bamberg’s supply chain co-operations had to be re-established
after personal connections dissolved a generation ago due to
general decline (TS/DB). Foundation of the
Interessensgemeinschaft Bamberger Gärtner (2010).
Pic: Authors from walking trail signage.
Pic: http://www.gaertnerstadt-
bamberg.de/index.php

10. Folie 10Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Urban horticulture in Bamberg:
“the local people” and its culture of
food
• As these local products are connected with everyday use
they are also taken-for-granted, which might be the reason
for a general lack of appreciation and valuing of local food by
the customers (as interviewees told us).
• This contrasts with many well-documented attempts to
associate higher values to locally distinctive products.
• As a consequence, in Bamberg, there is a low appreciation of
local fresh food, because food and its producers, the
gardeners, are regarded as a ‘cultural matter-of-course’.
 “Culture III”: A consuming culture of taken-for-granted
local and cheap urban food which is qualitatively reasonable
and locally distinctive, esp. for local residents.
TR: „It has to be said: beer is a food
for us, a basic form of nourishment,
rather like bread or butter or milk.“
CM: “We try to communicate through
the menu that our food is local, but I
think that, sadly, to many people it is
more important that the food tastes
good. I don‘t want to suggest they
don‘t care, but I don‘t believe they
think all that deeply about it.“

11. Folie 11Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Urban horticulture in Bamberg:
“new initiatives” I – the Bamberger
Sortengarten
• But also, efforts have been made in the last 4 years to
increase the appreciation of local food, local varieties and
cultivars (varieties that have been raised by local families
and successfully harvested for at least five seasons).
• The founding of the Bamberger Sortengarten (2013)
shows this (see quote, right). Established by different
people from civil society, including on organic urban
gardener (city-council member for the Green Party).
• This is one example where innovative gardeners readopt
a societal and communal role in strengthening co-
operation between heterogenous actors. The “counter-
culture” of some gardeners establishes new networks and
promotes social openness and biodiversity.
GL: We wanted to preserve old
varieties of plants and seeds. Many
local varieties were developed as a
result of the local gardening culture.
We managed to save some, but
many have been lost. We found old
recipes and now organise cooking
sessions so that old varieties can be
included in dishes and combined with
new varieties.

12. Folie 12Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Urban horticulture in Bamberg:
“new initiatives” II – the
Selbsterntegarten
• Following the formation of Bamberg’s Transition group (2014), the
Selbsterntegarten was established (winter 2015/16) - a type of AFN.
• The Selbsterntegarten wants to cultivate organic crops for interested but
untrained people in the city. It stresses co-operation, collective action
which includes professional knowledge (of an urban gardener) to
guarantee success of the project. People place strong emphasis on
learning, sharing knowledge and practice through social events and talks.
• The Selbsterntegarten is largely based on money transfer for the benefit
of each party. Unused land from one gardener is leased while this
gardener also shares horticultural knowledge and performs difficult tasks
(watering the field in summer as the people lack hardware). Win-win-
situation and new land uses.
 “Culture IV”: a new culture of producing local (and organic) food
associated with new social form and newly built co-operation. It
produces social innovation and irritation to established systems which
perform reflexivity on what they are doing and how precious the work is.
Pics: https://transition-bamberg.de

13. Folie 13Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Studying socio-cultural aspects of
urban agriculture
• Socio-cultural dimensions supplement existing technical, political and economic aspects of
urban agriculture research, and reveal yet more hidden geographies …
• In terms of structuring analysis, cultures are the result of particular schemes (‘scripts’) for
acting and producing meaning within routines and expectations that are often not reflected
(Nassehi 2011: 289). In Bamberg, the established gardeners’ culture represents a challenge to
co-operation and competitiveness. Future of urban horticulture: preserving routines and
identities or open to change and new collaborations?
• The existing literature on self-sufficiency, social innovation or spatial differentiation within urban
agriculture has often overlooked smaller cities with prominent (dominant?) cultural heritage
narratives and ordinary agricultural hinterlands.
• The Bamberg example reflects the multiplicity of different ‘Eigenlogiken’ (self-logics, self-
rationality) of actors. In analysing these, we think there is a case for paying more attention to
complexity theories, e.g. concepts such as Luhmann’s theory of social systems. These might
help illustrate how different groups in cities communicate with each other through and around a
culturalised food nexus, and how they produce and functionalise culture into their actions. In
other words, food can be an arena of a city’s cultural dynamics (and vice versa!).

14. Folie 14Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
The End. Some summary notes on
culture.
• We identified four types of culture in our research in Bamberg: (i) official culturisation (ii) the
traditional culture of the gardeners (iii) the consumption culture of residents (iv) a new culture
introduced by AFNs.
• Horticulture is part of Bamberg’s (agri-)cultural material landscape and symbolic identity
(place names, architecture, land uses in the Gärtnerstadt. The Gärtnerstadt combines with
other unique cultural characteristics, earning Bamberg a cultural designation of global
importance. Maintaining horticulture is therefore a high-stakes cultural preoccupation which
engages different levels of official engagement.
• The ‘burden’ of history means that a range of traditional practices (direct selling, local varieties,
family-ties/fraternities, lifestyles, recipes, language, religious conventions…) are associated
with the Gärtnerstadt. In this sense UA in Bamberg is not an innovation but, in fact, deep-
rooted cultural practices have inhibited innovation until recently. BUT …
• Reflexivity: While AFN scholars have famously called for more reflexivity within AFNs, we
think we recognise that AFNs stimulate reflexivity in OTHER systems.
• Does Bamberg reflect similarities (under different circumstances) with other CEE experiences
of UA/AFNs? We think so and would love to talk more about this.

15. Folie 15Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
Thanks for your attention!
„Culture“
official
culturali-
sation
traditional
culture of
the
gardeners
consump-
tion culture
of residents
culture
introduced
and
performed
by AFNs
FOR FURTHER QUESTIONS
dkeech@glos.ac.uk
marc.redepenning@uni-bamberg.de

16. Folie 16Conference: Alternative food supply networks in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards new grounds for interpretation and collaboration (Riga, Latvia)
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Opitz, I./Berges, R./Piorr, A./Krikser, T. (2016) Contributing to Food Security in Urban Areas: Differences between Urban Agriculture
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werden? Frölich-Kulik, M./Langner, S. (ed.): Rurbane Landschaft. Bielefeld: transcript.
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