The head of the association, Dodi József Molnár, had the following thoughts in his presentation: “What is happening in the wider world does not need to be presented to anyone, since environmental disasters, global health challenges, and social and existential insecurity, which is slowly becoming global, are flaring up in more and more parts of the world. wars make us feel with sobering pain: the basic living conditions of our created world are in imminent danger… …In this global situation, it has become immeasurably important to pour clean water into the glass in several areas of our lives, to understand the process that led to this, because from this ” “understanding” can give birth to the sense of responsibility that can give us enough strength to create local responses to global challenges that initiate healing processes in our own lives as well as in our communities.”
Photo: Enikő Szabóné Zsedrovits
One such local answer is Dunakosár (Dunaújváros Basketball Association), which already connects the buyer and the producer in more than 30 places in the country along the following values: – forwarding healthy food and other local products with the smallest ecological footprint; – re-establishing a live relationship between the producer and the customer; – stimulation of the local economy; – the possibility of connecting to a value-creating community; – volunteering, which allows you to do selflessly for others, for our common future.
The Kosárközösség initiative started in Nyíregyháza, and the founders continue to provide assistance to all participating communities to this day. Buying from small producers has many advantages. On the one hand, the trader’s margin is eliminated, logistically it is simpler, since we get the goods directly from the producer, and what is perhaps most important (in addition to supporting local small producers), we know what goes on the table, on the plate. Things happen in the Basket Community in the same way as on weekdays. We decide what we want to buy, what suits us. Accordingly, it is not a condition for the producers to, for example, produce the product chemical-free (many of them agree to do so), in the community they simply expect an “open yard” commitment, that is, to be able to go inside and see how, what kind of they produce and grow under conditions.
Melinda Csonka, one of the main organizers, spoke about the operation of the Dunakosár, which is now two years old. He said that on the website until midnight on Tuesday, the registered user has a way to select and put in the basket all the things he wants to buy. Then everything that was in the cart at that moment appears as an order. These orders also appear directly at the producer, who then has a full day to prepare and deliver the products to the delivery point. Because on Thursdays, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., the ordered goods can be collected directly from their volunteers at the KosárHáz (Dunaújváros, Jókai Mór u. 19. – entrance from Móra Ferenc utca), where the consideration can be settled in cash. The range includes food, spiritual nourishment, cosmetics and handicrafts. There are three ways to join the community, as a seller, buyer, and volunteer. Anyone who wants to sell must have an official certificate that they are a small producer or a primary producer. So far, there are 48 active producers from whom you can order on the site. The local initiative works so well that their partner in Nyíregyháza, which has been operating for 14 years now, has only twice as much traffic as they do, even though the population is more like three times that of here.
At the end of the presentation, the attendees could personally experience the quality of the handicraft products, the organizers invited them to a tasting.
