Tesselaars
Tesselaars are a group of people who are very open towards sustainable techniques and renewal. However their remote location can cause a bottleneck when supplying the island, and getting the resources they need to support themselves is never easy. And since the goal is to become self-sustainable, it is vital that there are no gaps or delays between these supplies. Even more, in order to fit the self-sustainable lifestyle, Tesselaars will also have to change their lifestyle so much in order to be able to use these local resources, they might not be able to make use of these outside resources anymore. A failure within the self-sustainable system would be catastrophic for their economy and way of life.
Of course, these new technologies have had almost fifty years to prove themselves by now. There have been tests and large scale experiments. As Texel will also be a pioneer on the subject of seaweed farming, businesses from other countries will have also picked it up, bringing more information about the influence of the surrounding environment on the technologies. As this information is there, and the infrastructure to handle the demand of the locals, their lifestyle is slowly changing in accordance with this.
This means the needs that have had to be fulfilled in order to make this vision a reality can be divided into two aspects: trust in the technology, and a lifestyle change.
For trust it was mostly about the complete new-ness of the technology and lack of long-term information. The seaweed had no reputation yet as an actual realistic market of goods, but widespread marketing, combined of course with actual results and budgets over a period of years have managed to combat this. As it has now moved up from a niche market into an actual widespread technology (Pesch, 2014), there are also quality controls that set standards to the industry.
While there was not much engagement at first due to the niche market, it is now an accepted technology that can actually bring results. Tesselaars are very interested and active in sustainable activity, and seaweed farming is now an integral part of their island.
As it is the sustainable technology most of their self-reliance is built on, there is a lot of emotional importance them. This is their way of life, and what they show to the tourists who come to Texel to visit this.
Seaweed farming is a very specific type of sustainability, and of course the materials that come for it can be slightly more restricted than good from anywhere else in the world. However, the Tesselaars are willing to reciprocate the effort the farmers put into this system by adapting their lifestyle to these new resources.
This lifestyle change can be quite radical, and it started by creating significant moments. The technology is an integral part of island life, and their way of living is completely dependent on it. This makes failures or successes an indistinguishable part of the Texel culture.
It also means that the locals and the farmers needs to synchronize their performance and integrate their rythms. In this future, seaweed farming is one of the only sources of food, medicine, good, etc for the island. When materials were brought in from outside, they came from different sources, and the supply was so great there was never a shortage of supply. That is not the case here. Like every living system, there are ups and downs, and periods in time when these farms do not produce goods. The lifestyle of the people accounts for this, so there never ends up being a shortage of goods on the side of the inhabitants.
The Tesselaars have changed their way of living, their economy, and many important aspects of their culture. They did this in the pursuit of sustainability, which is never a bad thing, but it was a radical change. Both the face of their island and their way of living was changed forever, since it is simply not economically feasible to transform back after this. The duration of their engagement is for the rest of their lives now.
Texel is pioneering a new way of living, where a large majority of the goods are produced on the island. This means most of the goods they buy are produced in this sustainable way. This influences the quality of deeds. It brings down the threshold, as so many of the goods are simple lifestyle products.
In the end the Tesselaars have had proof that living with the sea is a realistic and sustainable way of live, and as soon as this became known, they have thrown their lives around in the pursuit of this sustainable vision.
Farmers
The farmers working on living with the sea through seaweed farmers have been active promoters of this technology since the beginning. However, back in 2015 their numbers were restricted to the few working on the experimental phase. Now that it is a technology responsible for producing a large percentage of the island’s resources, the number of people working in the industry has gone up a lot. This means that for a large part their needs have not gone up in quality, but instead in quality. Still their needs can be split up in trust and producing, similarly to those of the Tesselaars.
For farmers trust is really about instilling this in orders. In 2015 this was such an experimental technology that they would not have started working with this if they hadn’t truly believed in it. Still for people not actively involved in seaweed farming, its reputation would’ve been sketchy at best. In this future situation the fact that there are so many new producers involved in seaweed farming is a good measurement of its reputation.
The new farmers have been engaged with the project over the last few decades. Many were people that already worked in the farming industry to some extent. As Texel has moved on from exporting their goods for money, and then using that money to buy new goods (RTV NH, 2015) there are now less farmers needed to produce non-sea food for the island.
The other farmers have changed their way of producing and instead moved on to this newer technology. They have given new emotional impact to this technology, instead of staying in the past.
As the farmers started in a position of distrust, with a new technology, the task was on them to prove that these new methods were capable of sustaining life on Texel, and that there was potential in expansion. As they proved this with physical products, quality controls, more widespread testing, others reciprocated. Land farmers stopped using their old methods, renovating or moving their farms to fit this new way of producing. Tesselaars accepted that there are some products that are simply not available at parts of the year, and that products can look different now. This reciprocity and willingness to trust has allowed Texel to become self-sustainable.
After this trust is gained, the farmers can expand their businesses. For the seaweed farmers there will be little more lifestyle changes necessary, but the new farmers that came into business due to the expansion will have to. Still, seaweed farmers can help the locals along by sharing their methods and lifestyle, and becoming examples of the way forward.
One of the ways to do this is by sharing their learning curve with the others. In 2015 this technology was kept separate, and named as a scientific experiment, with only occasional information available. Currently, the seaweed farm is completely integrated with the life and production on Texel. When their products become available is after all of vital importance for the community, as it is one of their only sources of goods. By opening up and volunteering information, the farmers create significant moments and the locals understand the process better, and will realize why it is so important to synchronize performance and integrate rythms.
Between the seaweed farmers this is important as well. As so many different products need to come from the farms, these farmers will have to discuss amongst each other how this will be divided. There also needs to be a very integrated rhythm, which actually means that when one farmer cannot produce at the moment, due to biological restrictions, another farmer’s crops will be producing at the time. This means that these farmers will work on different scales, producing goods at different times in a synchronized performance. The quality of deeds that they produce will differ due to the product, but all products are meant to be an integral part of sustaining life on Texel, for humans, animals, fish or flora. Farming is an occupation that will only produce over year long periods of time, and by changing their entire industry around from land to sea, the duration of their engagement will likely be lifelong.
Pesch, U. (2014). Tracing discursive space: Agency and change in sustainability transitions. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 90(part B). doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2014.05.009
RTV NH. (2015). Help! Texelse boeren met handen in haar om overschot piepers Retrieved November 20th, 2015, from http://www.rtvnh.nl/nieuws/161086/help-texelse-boeren-met-handen-in-haar-om-overschot-piepers