Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen joins Platform Productive Urban Green

Last week, Katrin Bohn met the German writer, journalist and activist Dr. Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen in Berlin, Germany. Together with Beatrice Walthall from the Working Group City & Food [AG Stadt & Ernährung], they discussed Elisabeth’s involvement in the project Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün [Platform Productive Urban Green].

Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen is one of Germany’s leading experts in urban agriculture and community gardening having written, lectured and practised extensively on the wider subject area since about 40 (!) years. The topics of her research and writings include the history of food cultures, agriculture in a globalised world, urban agriculture, community gardening, as well as women and gender studies. Having co-formed Berlin’s garden activist scene since many years, she is one of the founders of the project Allmende-Kontor, one of Berlin’s most prolific community gardens, which aims to introduce more urban agriculture to Berlin. Elisabeth has organised three international conferences on small-scale agriculture and community gardening. Currently, she works – again – as a „nomadic teacher“ on sustainable food issue crossing Germany per train or bicycle from one “urban field” to the next in order to research, encourage and photograph.

In her most recent (practice-based) project, Elisabeth co-led the co-design and co-establishment of two intercultural gardens in Bad Düben, a small rural town in Germany. A scientific report on this 2-year-long project is available on request.

For further information on the Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün see here.

For information on Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen’s work see here.

Image: A garden day in the Community Garden Bad Düben (source: Torsten Reinsch www 2018)