Community seeds | New European Bauhaus Prizes 2024 (2025)

Starting 2 years ago with the idea of establishing a community around a sustainable and organic production of food, we create a collective farm, a cooperative of more than two hundred members and associates.

We self-produce food in our large garden (5 ectares), deciding in advance together what, how and how much to plant. Every week we divide the vegetablesequally among us.We collectively cover the production costs, without selling anything outside.

The project is about supporting small-scale ecological agriculture that conserves and improves the environmental heritage and revitalizes the rural world.

Our production is organic and is oriented towards reuse and recycling of plastic material which is often “single use”.

We are more than 250 members and we produce food for our families, escaping completely the market paradigm: we divide equally the production we obtain each week by our garden while each member can pay (prefinancing the yearly budget) as he can afford. Every year, until now, we have been able to cover all the expenses and to distribute tons of organic vegetables and fruit among us.

The sharing of choices and responsibility in the management of the gardens mitigates the risk related to the results on the fields. Sharing generates a strong feeling of belonging to the project. Furthermore, the shared experience brings citizens, in the sense of inhabitants of the city, closer to the experience of knowing the land, its products and its times.

The feeling of beauty that belongs to those who work the fields and the experience of production constitutes a value that is expressed up to the sharing of recipes, knowledge, best practices through several communication channel (newsletter, whatsapp groups, virtual and offline meetings)

In a context in which rural activities are in difficulty due to phenomena of progressive depopulation of inland areas, we are able to offer adequate remuneration conditions to our three working members who are supported on the field by the other members day after day.

The result is a process of continuous strengthening of community ties that develops in relation to the needs and requirements of the territory in which we work.

Regarding sustainability, the key objectives of our project are:

• the biological quality of our production, who comes from a great attention to the quality of the soil and to the presence of wild herbs (who enrich the soil itself)
• the use of cultivation methods who impact as less as possible to the soil structure
• the saving of resources, in particular water, using the drop to drop system
• The reduction of plastic use with recycling and reuse practices
• the autoproduction of some of our seeds
• CO2 emission reduction; furthermore, in a large city like Rome, through an organized and collective system of distribution in different points within the city, we make members able to move only for the last mile delivery avoiding the need to reach the garden (outside the city centre) and so reducing the level of emissions.

Furthermore, our fields are within a regional natural riserva, Parco di Veio, and we have strong and close relationship with them to preserve this area following all the rules concerning flora and fauna and environmental and biodiversity protection.

If you come to see our gardens or if you just scroll the images in our website or facebook page you can understand how much we believe they are the most beautiful, sustainable and inclusive places.

We started two years ago cleaning the field (plenty of plastic and other typology of waste), reorganizing common spaces and redesigning the garden houses.

We took care of the wood, cleaning it and pruning trees.

We created a recreational area completely integrated in nature using recycling material and working together to build our green infrastructure.

Members of our community often come to CSA only to enjoy the sunset and have a walk among the gardens or in the wood.

All the words are not enough! Please have a look of our pictures in the website.

Through a common idea of a new lifestyle, we are creating a community around the autoproduction of food.

Community means hospitality and openness to all. As members, we come from all different backgrounds in terms of education, geographical origin, ages, experience in agriculture.

In addition, we established a wonderful partnership with an association who help autistic people and they come every week in our gardens to participate in our activities.

In this particular year of pandemic emergency we became the only way (being completely outdoor), for those guys, to interact with nature, with other persons and to stimulate their amazing personality.

We also donate, every year, 4 of our 160 quotes (parts in which we divide vegetables all over the weeks) to Mamma Roma, an association who helps disadvantaged families, bringing to them quality food.

Furthermore, the project is characterized by solidarity characteristics in relation to some social experiences that are active and collaborate with the project. Finally, the project calls for the active and conscious participation of members in the consumption of food, in its relationship with the cycle of the seasons, in the profound value that comes from having collaborated in its production.

It is difficult to find a unique category for our project.

The project regenerated rural area, it is a solution for the co-evolution of built environment and nature and with its fields it is a reinvented place to meet and share agricultural and cultural skills, experiences, know-how.

How ever, we can summarize everything saying that we are trying to invent and live following a new lifestyle, where the value of our food is not connected with money but with:

• the quality of vegetables and fruit we cultivate
• the relationships we establish
• the care and attention we put/pay in the preservation of the soil, of the wood

Through our project we intend to support the conservation and the enhancement of biodiversity, rural landscapes and sites of natural value, the improvement of environmental conditions and raising awareness on the issues of sustainable consumption, economic production and lifestyles.

The project itself is made by citizens and they are the first character and protagonist of the project. Open the project to others is our mission.

As already explained above, talking about inclusion, since the beginning we have involved civil society in the project. Our collaborations arose naturally with Mamma Roma and with other realities involved in helping disadvantaged people or in recovery of rural areas.

Collaborations with other local associations arose in these years and this summer we will host for the first time a camp in the circuit of international volunteer camps. In the period of the pandemic, due to the fact that our activities are carried out outdoors, we were able to allow people in difficulty to collaborate in complete safety with us on the fields.

The innovative nature of the project is evidenced by the characteristics of the project which, in a multidisciplinary manner, holds together the objectives of enhancing the rural heritage, sustainability, in particular as regards the reproduction of seeds and the characteristics of production and social innovation , through the involvement and collaboration of the associative world that actively and directly participates in the project.

Furthermore, through the project it is possible to concretely support small farms in crisis. A community like ours can collaborate with small producers in order to become their exclusive market by co-designing, co-financing and supporting agricultural activity and sharing the benefits and risks of production. The experience also allows us to promote the re-appropriation of quality food production processes through the cooperative model, eliminating intermediation and profit from food production and fair remuneration for workers.

Finally, the project contributes to the care of the territory through agro-ecological and sustainable practices. All these aspects represent the innovative features of our project.