Anatomy of a successful referendum on land use. How a citizens' initiative helped farmers to keep their land.

After the announcement of a multi-national mail order company to look in Weinheim (NW-Baden-Wurttemberg) for an area for its logistic center, the Weinheim mayor gladly offered an agricultural area, the so-called Breitwiesen. Thus, all had been decided? – Not yet! A local initiative was founded to defend these meadows, to save the agricultural land in the metropolis region and thus to protect the quality of life in Weinheim. Johanna Tröscher was part of this initiative and will tell us how this initiative organized itself and how it convinced the citizens of Weinheim and thus succeeded in protecting the Breitwiesen. Come in and have your say!

15.05.2013 Urban Agriculture in Columbia" - Between marginality and new ways to food sovereignity

The NGO Yanapaqui in Columbia supports people comig from rural areas into the big cities in building up community gardens. They educate people in organic farming and solidaritybased economy. Our lecturer is Camilo Martinez, an agriculture engineer and founding member of Yanapaqui.

He is involved in urban community gardening since 2008 and works in schools and universities in environmental education. For us he will evaluate the potential of the urban gardening for improving the food and seed souvereignity as well as the self-organisation of the people.