This week I went with some friends to Geneva in Switzerland. The Idea was to visit a cooperative garden project which delivers food for 400 households in Geneva.

The food is produced on various gardens around the city. On Thursday the bags with the fresh vegetables and fruits get delivered to 14 different distribution points all around the city where the consumers pick the bags up from 5 pm on.

Around 1000 people get fresh, organic food which is produced just around the corner. But the consumers don t pay for the food they actually get. They buy with their membership in the cooperative a part of the entire production of the gardens.

Obviously the gardens, where professional gardeners organise the cultivation if the available land, don t produce the same kind and amount of vegetables and fruits during the year. So in winter the consumers do get collard, leek and carrots whereas in the summer the bags are filled with tomatoes, salads, beans and pepper.

This does help the consumers to figure out what is actually growing in which time of the year in their region and their diet gets more diverse. Additionally to the financial contribution of each consumer, which depend on the individual income and the size of the bags they receive, everyone works around four days at the community garden. This helps to dissolve the modern strict separation between producers of crops and the consumers. Additionally it helps to strengthen the community feeling within the cooperative. Consumers see and learn how the food they eat everyday is produced.

As a part of the cooperative around a dozen people sell products from the garden on local markets. Even though this group of people is kind of independent from the cooperative itself all profit goes into the cooperative and if there are losses the cooperative helps them out. The sales on the markets have the advantage, that the cooperative remains present in public and it makes sure, that the products from the garden get distributed within Geneva.

The project is called “Jardins de Cocagne” and works already since more then 30 years. Several other projects started since then and the idea is spreading fast in the last years. All around Switzerland and France several cooperative organised gardens produce food for a certain group of people. Not all of the projects are exactly like the Jardins de Cocagne but the idea is similar.

There are some people in Freiburg who would like to start a community garden inspired by the people of Jardins de Cocagne. During our stay in Geneva the project “Schwarzer Rettich” appeared kind of appealing to us. On the on hand it demonstrates, that we are about to introduce new vegetables to the diet of our members and the black refers, at least for me for an anarchism and autonomy, which describes the way I would like to have the new cooperative organised.

We still have a long way in front of us but the visit at Jardins de Cocagne was very very motivating for all of us.

The first semester back in Germany has ended last week. I ve decided this time not to leave for travelling during our lecture-free time but work on a free radio station. I m doing an internship there for aproximately three months.

I ve basicly spent the last three days there entirely with workshops and interviews. Yesterday for example we were rallying through the city to accompany a protest organised by the “round table”, an organisation who is fighting for the dignity of unemployed people. It s fascinating to dive right into a leftist project without a classical boss and a very strong political environment. I learn thousands of things I was always curious about.

The only problem appears so far that I hardly eat and do not have any time appart from beeing in the radio or running around in Freiburg. I m hardly at home since I m on “vacation”. I really hope that this is just the very hectic beginning and after a while we are all calming down a bit and I m going to be able to finish my papers for university.

On the 24th of February I m already starting the new semester in Basel and from the 20. of March untill the 5. of April we are going to have a hard time because of the preparations for the NATO summit in Strasbourg.