A direct connection between local producers and urban consumers
The Peasant’s Box
“I cannot think of another country in the modern western world where half of the population lives in villages and grows food” The Peasant’s Box is “this great service where [the produce] comes to your door step every week”
Ronen - Peasant’s Box founding member
Video ▶Romania harbours half of the European peasant population – 5 million in all – more than a quarter of the entire country population (18 million). Most of them work the lands surrounding their households by sustainably using traditional techniques. This way of life is on the edge of extinction due to economical and political pressures of industrial agriculture.
The Peasant’s Box is an initiative which directly connects local producers and urban consumers, by by-passing the conventional food sale system. This endeavour “aims at reviving a precious and traditional relationship, based on trust between peasants growing food and city dwellers, and it is built on the idea of buying food in order to feed oneself” (the Peasant’s Box). Families of peasants assemble a box of seasonal products out of their own crop, which is then sold to urban consumers. The content of the box changes during the year according to what the season is offering. The price of the box is fixed, irrespective of its content; thus, potential errors are eliminated and the choice of whether “I want the box or not” – as the initiators put it – is simplified.
The initiative also aims at creating relationships built on trust between its members, in order to exclude the need for a product guarantee system. Due to its simplicity and to the advantage of growing by having the certainty of obtaining a benefit, the Peasant’s Box may become a national resource supporting the peasant way of life.
Currently, the programme is up and running in two cities, Cluj and Bucharest: overall, there are 9 families of producers supplying fresh vegetables, bread or dairy products to more than 300 urban families.