Daniëlla de Winter
Innovator
Tuin de Es
Netherlands
Social
Farming
Rural village
The innovation journey
Tuin de Es is a multifunctional agroecological care farm of ca. 2 hectares with a biological grocery shop. It organizes a food festival annually. Since 1981, the farm has been a vegetable farm in the province of Noord-Brabant. After the acquisition in 2012 by Daniëlla de Winter and Bart Pijnenburg, using a novel financing method through a cooperative membership with more than 250 shareholders (portiehouders), the farm has gained a new layer of broader social engagement and expanded its local and regional influence in the care of people with mental health issues.
Daniëlla has a passion for biological farming as well as promoting a healthy lifestyle for holistic well-being. She has developed and expanded the grocery shop of Tuin de Es in cooperation with other local producers. She gives yoga lessons at the farm and is developing and supporting a consistent pool of volunteers for caregiving and farming and participants. Her approach is relational, bringing people together through meals, the yearly food festival and workshops.
The farm is part of the Dutch alliance Toekomstboeren (a member of Via Campesina), a network advocacy organization contributing to social, educational, and inspirational gatherings for agroecological farmers.
The innovation impact
Tuin de Es won the third prize for innovation (awarded by Ekoplaza and Biobeurs) at the annual organic farming fair in January 2024. Important keywords are the farmers’ shop, local market, social food festival, communal meals and meetings and the promotion of agroecology.
For Tuin de Es, it is important to share knowledge about agroecological farming, which is not very common. Therefore, they organise workshops, interviews and excursions for educational purposes.