Potential der Selbstversorgung mit Gemüse in Mittelhessen : statistische Auswertung von Verbrauch, landwirtschaftlicher Erzeugung und des Flächenbedarfs

Abstract

Umweltschutz und Nachhaltigkeit erhalten in politischen und zivilgesellschaftlichen Diskussionen einen zunehmenden Stellenwert. Daraus ergibt sich für viele Städte, Landkreise und Kommunen die Frage, wie diese Themen zielbringend vor Ort umgesetzt werden können.Eine gute Voraussetzung um nachhaltige Projekte, im Speziellen Projekte im Bereich Landwirtschaft und Ernährung, voranzubringen, ist das Wissen über die aktuelle Versorgungslage mit Lebensmitteln und über deren Absatzstrukturen in einer Region.Um einen Überblick über die Versorgungslage und die Eigenversorgung der Region Gießen mit Gemüse und Kartoffeln zu erhalten, wurden Zahlen zu Anbauflächen, Erntemengen und Verbrauch aus verschiedenen Agrarstatistiken der Bundes- und Landesämter ausgewertet. Die Region Gießen wurde anhand der administrativen Grenzen des gleichnamigen Regierungsbezirks gefasst. Aus den vorliegenden Werten wurde einerseits der Selbstversorgungsgrad (SVG) der Region und andererseits die benötigte Fläche bei Selbstversorgung berechnet. Diese Arbeit beschränkt sich dabei auf die Auswertung des Gemüseanbaus im Jahr 2016, da es sich hierbei um die aktuellste Agrarstrukturerhebung handelt. Zur Einordnung der Ergebnisse wurden entsprechende Daten für Hessen und Deutschland zum Vergleich herangezogen. The increasing importance of environmental protection and sustainability in political and civil discussions leads to the question of how these topics can be implemented in local politics. A good prerequisite for promoting sustainable projects is to gather knowledge about the current state of supply and sales structure. In order to obtain an overview of the supply situation in the Giessen region, data on cultivated areas, harvest volumes and consumption were evaluated from various agricultural statistics. The Giessen region was defined on the basis of the boundaries of the administrative district called Regierungsbezirk Gießen . From the mentioned data, the level of self-sufficiency and the required area for the highest possible level of self-sufficiency were calculated. This work is limited to the evaluation of vegetable cultivation in 2016. For a better classification of the results, figures of Hesse and Germany were used for comparison. In Giessen, vegetables are grown on only 92.9 ha, of which 2.1 ha are in greenhouses. A total of 1.954.2 t of vegetables were produced on these areas in 2016. About 1.015.00 t of vegetables are needed to supply the more than 1 million inhabitants. This number is based on a per capita consumption of 97.1 kg vegetables per year. Thus the demand is around 100.000 t higher than the production numbers. Accordingly, the level of self-sufficiency for vegetables is 2 %. For complete self-sufficiency, with an increase in yield to Hessian level and an adaption of the cultivation ratio to consumer behavior, a cultivation area for vegetables of at least 3.000 ha would be required. For 100 % organic farming and average yields wich, for the district Giessen, are below the Hessian level, a maximum of 5.500 ha would be required.Potatoes were cultivated on 384 ha in 2016. With an average yield of 399 dt/ha, an approximate of 15340.8 t of potatoes had been harvested.The level of self-sufficiency for potatoes is 25 %. For self-sufficiency of potatoes an area of about 1.500 ha would be required for the mentioned average yield.In the overall context of Hesse, there are the small cultivation areas for vegetable in the district Giessen and in contrast to that, there are 7651 ha occupied by vegetable cultivation in three districts in the south of the district of Darmstadt. This area constitutes 74 % of the vegetable areas in Hesse. The growing region is called Hessisches Ried and produces mainly asparagus and onions, but also a variety of other vegetable crops. The reasons for the intensive vegetable cultivation in this region are the fertile alluvial soils in the area of the Old Rhine and a season that usually begins one or two weeks earlier than in other Hessian regions, due to mild temperatures that are on average 1° C higher than in Central Hesse. Another point is the good supply of water through an aquifer and the proximity to the Rhine, from which water is irrigated for agriculture. Despite a very large area under cultivation, the level of self-sufficiency in the district of Darmstadt is only 40 %, which is due to the high population in the Darmstadt/Frankfurt conurbation.The level of self-sufficiency in the third Hessian district Kassel is also around 40 %, even though the area under cultivation of just above 800 ha, which is considerably smaller than in the district of Darmstadt. The reasons for this are the comparatively smaller population and the predominant cultivation of cabbage, which occupies ¾ of the area and has a high yield per hectare.With a level of self-sufficiency of 33 % for vegetables, Hesse as a whole is only slightly below the German level of self-sufficiency, which was 35 % in 2016.There are many reasons for the poor supply of vegetables in Germany. A strong influence is the consumption pattern, which in recent years has shifted more and more away from easily storable crops like cabbage in recent years to poorly storable crops such as tomatoes and lettuce. The decreasing seasonality in the diet promotes imports, mostly from Holland and Spain. In view of the heavy cultivation of corn for fodder purposes, high meat consumption may also have an impact on the relatively low vegetable cultivation.In order to counteract this trend, regional sales and processing structures that retain a large part of the added value in the region would have to be promoted. The minimum of approx. 3.000 ha up to a maximum of approx. 5.500 ha, that would be necessary to supply the district of Giessen are probably not feasible in the near future. The knowledge about the extent of the undersupply, however, makes clear the need for action and gives hope that there will also be political support in this direction in the coming years, as well as further analyses of the supply situation with agricultural products. In a further study, an in-depth analysis of the location factors should be used to determine the extent of which agricultural land suitable for vegetable cultivation could be available and which level of self-sufficiency for vegetables would realistically be possible in the region.