Full case study report: Bioregion Mühlviertel - Austria

Summary

The ‘Bioregion Mühlviertel’ represents a territorial approach towards regional development based on a strong organic agriculture sector. The Mühlviertel region is located in the province of Upper Austria (yellow) and comprises the four districts (above the blue line in Graphic 4 marking the river Danube) of Freistadt, Perg, Rohrbach and Urfahr-Umgebung (covering 122 municipalities). On 3090km2 the area inhabits 270.000 people with a density of 92 people/km2. The agriculturally used area is 2580km2 of which again around one quarter gets cultivated organically. Also the proportion of organic farms (≈26%) is higher than the national average of around 17% (BMLFUW, 2014). The development process of setting up the Bioregion began in 2010. All in all around 1200 people were contributing to the process of establishing the Bioregion. During numerous workshops and events a long-term development concept was elaborated together with stakeholders. Currently 7 Austrian Leader-regions and the Euregio "Bayrischer-Wald/Böhmerwald" are involved.