Week I – Food & Soil
04.05.2020 14 - 16h ### Dr. Tanja Busse Save the agricultural culture!
In recent decades the way milk, meat, eggs, cereals and vegetables are produced in Europe has changed fundamentally. The new agricultural system - modern agriculture, some call it, agro-industry, others call it - is based on the principles of industry: intensification, and mechanisation, specialisation and standardisation. The collateral damage of this development: farm deaths, endangerment of natural resources, loss of biodiversity and agricultural culture. Desperate farmers, suffering animals, outraged city dwellers - but cheap raw materials for the food industry. The solution: Saving agricultural culture and bringing together sustainable solar agriculture, biodiversity, healthy nutrition, participation and the common good economy on an equal footing. It is not the laboratory meat of large corporations, but the rural avant-garde that will secure the food of the future. Dr. Tanja Busse is a journalist and philosopher. She works as a freelance presenter, author and journalist for various newspapers and as a curator. She is Fellow of the DFG Research Group on the Future of Sustainability at the University of Hamburg. Books: „The Disposable Cow“, „The Death of Others. How we can still save Biological Diversity“. ### Florian Schwinn Save the Soil - Why we must fight for the life beneath our feet
In the living soil of the earth, in the thin layer of the topsoil, miriads of mostly microscopic animals, plants, fungi and bacteria ensure their fertility. They decompose the dead material on the soils, incorporate it into the soil, provide the plants with nutrients, keep the water balance in equilibrium and ensure temperature equalization. They nourish everything that lives on and from the soil. In doing so, they build up humus and thus incorporate carbon into the soil. Soil life stores greenhouse gases permanently in the soil. When we damage soil life, we release greenhouse gases. If we protect and promote soil life, we are actively protecting the climate. Florian Schwinn is a journalist, radio host and author of several books, such as „Rettet den Boden – Warum wir um das Leben unter unseren Füßen kämpfen müssen“ ("Save the Soil - Why we must fight for the life beneath our feet“).