This data was collected as part of the PhD project “Tending Seeds of Civic Activity” in the winter, spring and summer of 2021. Farmers in the Netherlands who were identified as “proto-regenerative” were selected, and new contacts were gathered through the snowball method. Proto-regenerative means that the selected farmers are, to varying degrees, driven by a mission of building regenerative food systems, which is defined as healthy people, healthy communities, and a healthy planet. Land and food cooperatives in Germany and the Netherlands were also identified and contacted for interview. Cooperative initiatives, to varying degrees, share principles of democratic control by members, solidarity, collective ownership, and value-based organizational decision making.

Interviews generally followed the interview guide included in the data set. Questions were geared towards understanding the ways in which citizens take matters into their own hands in attempts to address pressing social and ecological crises, (2) regenerative economic relationships that are built by citizens and communities, and (3) ways that responsive governance could better recognize, facilitate and enable these generative alternatives.

Project: https://recoms.eu/)