How The Sausage Gets Made

In this project, I sought to investigate and document interdependencies within the local food supply chain in Netra, a small rural farming community in the middle of Germany. This small town in the Werra River valley has maintained its local/small farm system of agriculture for generations and I was curious to discover lessons that might apply to local communities in the US.

How does a traditional system where local farmers, suppliers, and consumers know each other continue to thrive in the modern world?

I sought to understand whether it would be possible/sustainable for US communities to return to this more traditional, small-scale model, or at least provide a pathway for the revival of small farms, and what that would require. As the world grapples with the ethical, environmental, and community impacts of large-scale agriculture, understanding the dynamics of a traditional food supply model like Netra’s could inform sustainable practices globally, particularly in the US, where small farms face dramatic decline.

I began by selecting the farms, dairy producers, and other food suppliers to interview based on their distance from Netra, ensuring a representative cross-section of the local valley food supply chain. A total of seven farms were selected, ranging from wheat and grain-based farms, to animal farms, and even a solar farm with plans to eventually upscale and provide the majority of the area with a renewable source of energy.

I conducted in-depth interviews with my selected sample of local food suppliers, including farmers, cheesemakers, and restaurateurs. After developing a standardized set of open-ended questions focusing on their roles, interdependencies, and perspectives on local vs. industrial food production, I began the interview process.

I wanted to know the respective amount of goods each farmer produced within a year, and to whom he/she sold these goods. How much did the materials and land required to produce these goods cost, and how many people did the farmer employ for the upkeep of his/her farm. Finally I wanted to know how the farmer came to own the property- through other family or through purchase?

From the townspeople I sought to gather how important it was to buy locally sourced food, and the expense differences between local and nonlocal items.

The third and final tier of my three-pronged mixed research methodology was Ethnographic Fieldwork; I arranged to actively participate in local food production and distribution activities, allowing me to gain firsthand insights into the complexities and nuances of the local food supply chain. I was able to engage in focused participant observation at farms, markets, and food preparation sites, documenting practices and interactions.

My findings revealed that citizens living in Netra and the surrounding towns value both buying and producing locally-grown food wherever they can. In fact, locally produced food is such an ingrained part of their lifestyle that most people I spoke with don't even consider that food production is vastly different in the US. One resident remarked, "Oh this milk isn't local, it's from the next town over." Everyone I spoke with made a point to emphasize the importance of local, fresh food and how locally produced food makes up a significant portion of their diets. I also found it to be common (even expected) that most of Netra's citizens have private gardens where they grow plants such as tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, cucumbers, plums and herbs.

Local farmers in Netra produce grain, meat and milk which is then made into dairy products and sausage at the Milkerei in Erfurt, two towns away in this bucolic valley. While the animal products are made using local cows, pigs and chickens, the locals do not consider these items, which are then sold in grocery stores across Germany, including in Netra and surrounding villages, to be local because they are processed in Erfurt. More aligned with the locals' idea of "local" would be farmers who raise, slaughter, feed, and make sausage from pigs all in the same place, such as Leo Magnus. Mr. Magnus grows his own crops which are harvested and turned into pig feed for his pigs. He estimates he owns around 50 pigs, and each pig costs around 5,000 euros.

Mr. Magnus estimated that 99% of his pigs are slaughtered and sold to be made into sausage products. 1% remain to feed him and his family. By walking 5 minutes from Netra through green fields, one can find the local sausage maker, whose wursts made from local animals fed with locally grown crops, hang by the hundreds in the "curing" attic. Residents of Netra and the surrounding small villages laughed at my amazement--this is a way of life that has been sustained for generations in Germany.

Mr. Magnus, his wife and his son manage the upkeep of the farm alone. When I asked him how he acquired his pigs and became a farmer he told me it was just a hobby that he picked up along the way. "I bought one pig, and then another. They needed land, so I bought one acre, and then another to grow the Weizenmehl to feed them. Now I have 50 pigs and 2 hectares of land."

For every milk and animal product in Germany, information on which farm the animal was born and raised in is available on the product itself and can be accessed by a QR code. Townspeople told me they do look at this information when deciding whether or not to purchase any given product. The locals complain that "locally" grown food, food produced solely by those living in Netra and sold at Netra's weekly farmer's market or in local grocery stores and shops is expensive, and differs from "nonlocal" products by 3-6 euros depending on the product.

I am in the unique position that I can trace my family history back to Netra, Germany from the early 1800’s. My family has been involved in the local food supply for almost as long. Until it was seized by the government in WW2, my grandmother and her parents owned a family mill that produced flour and bread for local residents. Incidentally, her family subsisted on fresh trout from the stream that powered the mill. I was able to see the land where that mill once stood during this trip.

This study transcended personal interest in a way that I couldn't have imagined. I aimed to contribute to discourse on sustainable agriculture, ethical food production, and community resilience, but in contrasting the local food system in Netra with the industrialized agriculture prevalent in the US, this project highlighted the innate ethical benefits of local food production, including reduced environmental impact, enhanced animal welfare, and bolstered local economies. Most of all it highlighted the thriving relationship between the people and agriculture/animal life in Netra, an unspoken mutual understanding of the roles that each must play in the wellbeing of the other. Nothing is ever taken for granted or without thought,

My next step would be to document interdependencies within the local food supply in a larger more industrial city in Germany, such as Berlin. I'd hope to see the same morals and values of having and growing locally sourced food transcend the boundaries of space and ease of lifestyle that are more prevalent in Berlin. I'd be curious to see how Berlin's large immigrant population contributes to the concept of organic and humane animal products, and interacts with the ethnically German population in this way. Mostly I am looking for a way that the values and concepts exhibited by the townspeople in Netra could scale up and meet the broader demands of a bustling city. This might provide a path for how America could, one day, reduce the number of large industrial farms and return to a more traditional, locally-sourced model.