Four years ago nine city-regions took on the challenge to establish FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs. In this final blogpost, the Berlin Lab reflects on the journey and development made during the whole project, through an interview to the Bari Lab coordinators. Explore the Transition Toolkit to to learn more about the other Lab’s experiences, Berlin’s city’s reports on innovation and governance and more.

Key takeaways  

• The focus of the Berlin FAL was to accelerate citizen-led change in the food system by establishing a prototype Urban Food Hub (LebensMittelPunkt) to provide a space for co-learning and experimentation.  
• They chose this focus because they noticed a need for the fostering of networks and collaboration among citizens and active food groups, to move the topic of food forward in a more coherent way.  
• Although they faced several challenges, they achieved a lot! They managed to create more opportunities for people to meet, connect, build trust and network. As for the successes on a political level, food hubs are now in the Berlin municipal coalition agreement and the FoodSHIFT project has laid the foundations for further funding to scale up from 3 initiatives in 2020 to 27 urban food hubs in 2023.  
• For a city looking to embark on a similar journey, the recommendation is to take a grounded, empathetic approach to supporting citizens and listening to their needs, while engaging administrations to support food transformation at all levels.
   

Interview with the Berlin Lab coordinators

What was your city’s specific focus in your food system transition and how did you initially start working with this focus area in your city? 

Karen Wohlert

We wanted to accelerate citizen-led change in the food system. Our main lever was the idea of urban food hubs, called LebensMittelPunkte in German. And I think at the beginning we didn’t have a very clear vision of what would come out of it. But it was about starting a process and a living lab, to see what we could achieve, what worked and what didn’t, and to learn and collaborate toward trying to move things forward.  

Lisa Haarhoff

We, as the civic food policy council, had planned to accompany the Berlin food hubs politically at various levels. However, due to the structure of the various initiatives, this initially remained at the Senate municipal level. It made no sense to accompany the food hubs at the smaller district level. So we concentrated on the Senate municipal level, and because of the elections, the Food Policy Council got involved in informing different politicians about food hubs and about food policy as a cross-cutting issue. This has been our main focus at different events organised by the Food Policy Council, that food policy is a cross-cutting issue for politicians and at the administrative level.  

What were some obstacles or challenges you faced in your food system transition and how did you overcome them (or are planning on overcoming them)? 

Lisa Haarhoff  

What’s really missing is a network that works on the food strategy at a political level. What is our vision, what do we want to achieve and what do we want to communicate to politicians? We’re all in our projects and working like little bees and that’s fine. But there is little interest or capacity to work on a political level. We also don’t have a deep understanding of the political progress. For example, we don’t have a network where the Secretary of State or somebody else informs us about policy issues like regional value chains.  But it would really help to start a discussion about what we can do and what is missing and what can we contribute?

Karen Wohlert   

When I think about things from the normal citizen’s perspective, like the people who are interested in food change and who want to contribute to citizen-led food initiatives and so on, they do not know that there is a municipal food strategy. They’ve sometimes heard of the Berlin Food Policy Council, but they don’t know what the food strategy is. They are more focused on the grassroots level.   

Lisa Haarhoff    

My thesis is that the interest in the Berlin food strategy at the level of the citizens is very, very low. But at least now they are starting to think about it and it is slowly becoming a matter of interest. I think we really need a lot of projects in Berlin to change attitudes. But that’s not so realistic. And at the level of civil society, at the level of other NGOs, food policy and food strategy are becoming more and more important, and they have included it in their own agendas in the last two or three years.    

Beatrice Walthall  

Yeah, I share a similar view. As Karen and Lisa have said, there is not a lot of awareness in general. Many people are unaware of what is going on. But in a participatory mapping activity that we did in a neighbourhood four weeks ago, we also had a lot of conversations with people who had no idea about the food strategy development process. But we had leaflets about the Food Policy Council and about the food strategy. And when you started to talk to them about it, they seemed to be interested in finding out more about it. It’s not that they wanted to ignore it. But it’s more about lacking awareness or not knowing than not caring, I would say.    

Lisa Haarhoff   

Yes. To most people it is a private matter. Food is a private matter and not something political.    

Karen Wohlert   

I mean, from our side, the answer is that with the LMP network it’s also about getting enough funding to organise and give enough opportunities and support to citizens who want to act. So funding for the support structure. Then, another aspect is really also about a story and a shared vision of changing the food system in the city and the region. So, more communication about that, more of a vision, more clarity. That would be helpful. A common narrative and goals more widely communicated and agreed upon.  

If you look back on the last four years, what would you say were your biggest achievements or impacts that you achieved during the project?   

Karen Wohlert    

I think at the heart of it, it’s all about personal connections. We have created more opportunities for people to meet, to connect. And also, how we work at Baumhaus, having these very informal, very personal conversations. I think it builds up trust and networks and makes them stronger. We are an acceleration of things or a catalyst of the ecosystem. It’s still a soup, but we’ve contributed to it and it’s getting better and it’s going to evolve beyond FoodSHIFT. So, a lot of things or results will only come out in the next few years. Things we have supported and initiated.  

Lisa Haarhoff   

And I think the political success is that the food hubs were put into the Berlin municipal coalition agreement. In the previous government, it wasn’t just the Berlin Food Policy Council. It was also the direct communication between Karen and the Senate administration that made things happen. And the fact that we have worked together at this point in time, that we have formulated a wish or a demand, that now we are stronger together. This is also one of the successes of FoodSHIFT. Because if I hadn’t been there and said that this is an important demand that we, the Berlin Food Policy Council, must integrate and streamline our demands to the Senate administration, it wouldn’t have happened. I think it was a success.

Karen Wohlert  

I really think that FoodSHIFT came into the Berlin ecosystem at the right time. I think it was a good combination, and it got things started. And I don’t think we would have managed to get the major additional funding for the food hub network which allowed us to scale from 3 initiatives in 2020 to 27 in 2023, and still growing, if we hadn’t been able to say: “Hey, this is part of an EU innovation process, we have ZALF, a well-known institute, as a local partner, and we have an impact assessment where science actually says that this is good, this is new, this is needed.” Also, FoodSHIFT gave us time. It was a three-and-a-half-year process for us. So, in that time, we could try things, develop things, we could rethink the structure of the food hub network in a kind of continuous evolution. Now we’re in a place where we know how to go on. But it really took some years to understand and to test and build and network.  

What advice do you have for other cities who want to embark on a similar journey? 

Karen Wohlert  

Many things. But I would say it’s an opportunity to have this multi-year process of building something and learning from it. It’s about how to get citizens involved. We had the most success with very hands-on support. Like saying: “Hey, we’re a partner for you, change agents, or potential change agents. And we’re here to support you. What do you need?” It’s about being really open about what kind of support they need.  

Lisa Haarhoff  

I think the lessons we have learnt are, for example, that the involvement of the administration is a very effective way of supporting the transformation of the food system. But also that there is a lack of involvement in Berlin and that all administrations have to be part of the process. It is a very difficult job. But I think that food policy is really a cross-cutting issue in the city. It is more likely to show results if all the administrations are involved.  

Contact details 

Karen Wohlert, Lab Leader and coordinator of the Food Hub Network Berlin 

karen@baumhausberlin.de
 

Lisa Haarhoff, Lab Host and representative of the Berlin Food Policy Council 

Kontakt@ernaehrungsrat-berlin.de 

Beatrice Walthall, Lab Assistant and researcher at Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) 

Beatrice.wallthall@zalf.de 

Check out previous blogposts and the documentary by the Berlin’s Lab:

Seeds of Change – Documentary

How to cook up civic-driven food system governance?  A step-by-step guide for practitioners 

Europe meets Berlin

The post Berlin’s story: Food Hub Lab appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

By FoodSHIFT 2030 and the Berlin Lab

FoodSHIFT 2030 documentary Seeds of Change

The way we produce and access food is already changing, but it requires a team effort from farmers, institutions, authorities, scientists, and others to make it happen. What can we do to increase the visibility of this transformation to a wider audience? And how can we inspire others to get involved in creating a food system that’s more equitable and resilient? To explore these questions and share their findings, a group of young people created the short documentary Seeds of Change: Tracking the Food System Transformation.

Key words: movie, science-society communication, agroecology, alternative food network, food hub

While standing on a field in Brandenburg, a farmer and scientists are talking to each other about the role of farmers and the future of agriculture. Jan Sommer from Waldpferdehof in Dahmdorf explains that farming used to be primarily an economic issue, with farmers needing to produce a certain yield to cover expenses such as land payments and labor. However, now the challenge is not about rent but rather giving the soil enough time to regenerate while also ensuring there is enough land for people’s livelihoods. This situation is quite difficult and concerning, but many individuals have recognized the need for change, rolled up their sleeves and are taking action towards a food system that values forests, soil, seeds, people, animals, and nature beyond just their market value as commodities.

Seeds of Change is a short documentary that portraits the efforts of people in Berlin and Brandenburg, Germany, who are building an alternative food network to bring about a food system transformation. The film follows scientists studying the emergence of this network and demonstrates how relationships are discovered, experimented with, and nurtured by a diverse group of individuals. Although the network is not immediately visible, it is well-connected, self-organized, and has multiple pathways, all leading back to one central hub – the Baumhaus in Berlin. The Baumhaus acts as a food hub that brings together farmers, consumers, activists, and scientists in an effort to reconnect and strengthen the regional food system.

The relationships in the agroecologiocal network are reciprocal and cyclical: the Baumhaus, for instance, sources food from farmers in Brandenburg who cultivate their soils using agro-ecological practices. At the same time, it serves as a host for self-organized CSA depots, food-sharing points, and collective cooking events. Through such events, people develop a deeper connection to the food and farms, as well as to each other, sharing experiences and knowledge related to food and beyond. By embracing dynamic, uncertain, and diverse approaches, the network creates more opportunities to discover unexpected pathways.

Urgent action is necessary to address the planetary emergency, and this requires a transformation of the globalized corporate food system. The alternative food network centered around the food hub serves as a catalyst for this transformation, creating tangible and measurable changes:

• After one year, more than 10 tons of products from 70 different species and varieties were distributed from the CSA farms to the food hub. 
• New relationships based on care, not control, between people and nature have been built and experienced in an agroecological food network for accelerating the transformation (Vicente Vicente et al. 2023).
• The food hub has the capacity to become a centrepiece for food strategies. They are lively exchange locations for food, learning, and creating vivid neighbourhoods.
• Multiplying the food hub in Berlin increases the resilience of the metropolitan food environment: With a network of 230 food hubs, livable urban neighbourhoods could be implemented in the entire city of Berlin (Klebl et al, 2022).

The question for the present and future is: how to scale such initiatives before it is too late?

References

Vicente-Vicente, JL., Borderieux, J., Martens, K., González-Rosado, M., and Walthall, B. (2023) Scaling agroecology for food system transformation in metropolitan areas: Agroecological characterization and role of knowledge in community-supported agriculture farms connected to a food hub in Berlin, Germany, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, doi: 10.1080/21683565.2023.2187003

Klebl, F., Walthall, B., and Vicente-Vicente, JL. (2022) Planning for sustainable food communities: An optimal spatial allocation study of food hubs considering the 15-min city concept—The case of LebensMittelPunkte in Berlin. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 6:913412. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2022.913412

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Read and download the full paper on this page!

The post Planning for sustainable food communities: the Berlin case appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

A step-by-step guide for practitioners 

Key words: food system governance, food strategy, guide, methods and tools 

?  Read and download the complete guide in the resources section: “Infopackage on good practices and evaluation criteria for citizen-driven food system governance“.

Many city-regions across Europe are asking themselves how to improve their local food policy, how to engage stakeholder and how to develop and implement actions for a food system transformation.  

To address these questions, FoodSHIFT has created a step-by-step guide for practitioners to create their own recipes for civic-driven food governance. The guide presents the governance approach towards food system transformation taken by FoodSHIFT and helps the reader to become more familiar with key concepts and processes of developing a food strategy.  

The reader is guided through each step for developing a food strategy (i. Initiation, ii. Assessment, iii. Stakeholder Engagement, iv. Vision Building and Action Planning, v. Evaluation), which come with templates, exercises and additional material to support a participatory and deliberative process. However, the process, steps and methods presented in this guide are not limited to building a food strategy, but can be useful for many different food system initiatives.  

Initiation – The Power of Storytelling 

At the beginning of the process comes often the question “Why?” Why to develop a food strategy? Why now? Why at city level, which has nothing to do with agriculture?  

To communicate the relevance of a local food strategy (or other food topics), storytelling can be a powerful tool. It is through stories that we simplify and make sense of complex topics or motivate others to act. Stories help us to identify problems and solutions and to understand why something is happening. Stories covey assumptions and believes, which influence the rules that define our economies, policies and societies. However, stories not only help us to increase our awareness and make sense of something, but also help to rewrite “realities”; they generate new visions and ideas, stories engage the listener and motivate people to act. The guide provides resources for creating and telling food stories. 

Assessing – What‘s on the radar?

In order to know what needs to change, it is important to understand the current situation. Without a baseline increases the risk of spending a lot of time and resources into ineffective actions and policies. So, instead of jumping straight to actions, it is recommended to step back and take a look at the local food system to see what is happening, where are the gaps, what is working well and what not so well. While assessments can be resource heavy, in the long run they are extremely beneficial (both in terms of appropriate policies and actions). The guide presents a list of tools with different levels of complexity and required expert knowledge and/or resources. 

Engaging Others – Who is on board? 

To support the food strategy development and implementation, it is important to engage a series of stakeholders across sectors. Common arrangements for driving food systems work are food policy councils, steering committees or food partnerships. In such arrangements one will typically involve stakeholders from across the food system, representing different perspectives, areas of expertise and interests. It can be challenging to keep everyone on board but can be mitigated with good food governance principles in place. The guide presents some tips and principles to ensure ongoing stakeholder engagement. 

Vision Building and Action Planning – Let‘s do it! 

Before spelling out your strategy with concrete goals and actions, it is important to formulate a vision. A good vision describes what your city wants to achieve in the future and can motivate and support others to get and stay engaged.  To work towards the vision, the guide recommends to find fitting pathways by selecting and planning strategic goals, operational goals and actions. Besides other resources, the guide provides a template to develop a desired and logical trajectory for moving from strategic goals towards a vision. 

Evaluating – Are we heading in the right direction?  

Since this process is new to many city-regions, it is recommended to evaluate the taken decisions and actions and to see whether the efforts contribute to the desired outcome. Evaluative questions include “Are we heading in the right direction and spending our resources efficiently? Are the stakeholder engagement and participatory process inclusive enough? Or do we need to adjust and customize our journey? The guide holds a template to reflect on the progress, to boost the confidence or highlight needed changes.  

Cook your own food governance meal 

Becoming familiar with the process, exercise templates and further material is only the first step. With the help of the guide, practitioners can roll up their sleeves and cook up their own food governance meal. 

You want to share your recipes or learn more about other city region‘s recipes? Then sign up up by emailing FoodSHIFT+-subscribe@lists.riseup.net or check out other contributions to the FoodSHIFT knowledge hub. 

The post How to cook up civic-driven food system governance?  A step-by-step guide for practitioners  appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

In recent years, civic-driven action for food system transformation is spurring up across Europe. Within FoodSHIFT2030, partners from 12 European countries built up 9 innovations hubs to co-create sustainable and balanced solutions for food system change. 

While food system change is the smallest common nominator between the partners, the goals of the innovation hubs, however, are manifold. While Brasov focuses on linking regional farmers with the urban gastronomy, Avignon embraces healthy public school procurement or Ostend builds up food literacy and healthy communities. 

Regardless of the diverse actions, many share similar questions when organizing bottom-up food system change. Many ask themselves: How do we reach out to potential partners and how can we engage with diverse communities? Once people are motivated to join the activities, how do you keep them on board? And how can people be empowered to become active food citizens?

These questions and more were at the core of the showcase event in Berlin on September 1st-3rd 2021.

During the first day, a bike tour led the participants from one local project to another through the winding streets of a former working district in Berlin Wedding. First stop was at the Himmelbeet, a 1.700m2 community garden growing since 2013 on a former parking lot. Today, in 2021, the vibe of a parking lot (not much of a vibe) got transformed into a green between a major road, apartment buildings, and a soccer field. Marion de Simon from Himmelbeet shared stories on the garden’s history, forms of engagement, current activities and struggles, like access to land.Toni Karge from the Berlin Senate joined the discussion on the common struggle to secure access public land for community gardening in the long term. 

A different answer to the same questions on community engagement and empowerment was presented by Magdalena Knobel from the Food Policy Council Berlin. Motivated by the premises that everyone should have fair access to a healthy and balanced diet, the project “together at one table” was initiated. Within the project, Syrian and Afghan refugees cook with Berliners and come together at one table to share their stories, cultures and perspectives. Magalenda explains, “sustainable mean different things to different people and to feel included, people need to understand what’s going on on the ground”. 

“Understanding” is also of key importance to Gülcan Nitsch founder from Yesil Cember (Turkish: Green Circle), another project presented during the Berlin showcase event. Gülcan’s ambition is to sensitive and engage the Turkish Community in Germany for sustainability issues, like food systems. Gülcan reflects: “If people cannot read or write, than they can still come to our workshops. I do not exclude them. It is my responsibility to create access for these people.” 

A fourth vignette to community engagement and empowerment was presented by Johanna Kühn, co-founder of SuperCoop, a community-led supermarket. Through early neighbourhood engagement, information exchange and trust building, the SuperCoop succeeded in securing enough collective money to open up Berlin’s first citizen-owned supermarket.  

After a deep dive into Berlin’s richness of community-led food projects, the second day of the event was spent with Karen Wohlert and Scott Bolden at das Baumhaus. Das Baumhaus is an open socio-cultural project space for bottom-up sustainability solutions and the home of Berlin’s FoodSHIFT2030 innovation hub. Here, Berlin’s first food hub prototype is being co-created and built up for and with the local community.

During the showcase event, the visiting partners got to be part of the food hub for 1 day. Through hands on engagement, vegetables were sorted and distributed while food was prepared and finally enjoyed together on a long wooden table placed on the sidewalk and decorated with candles. The meal prepared was inspired by the planetary healthy diet, containing mixed herb salads, nuts, and oven roasted carrots and red beet from regional farmers. Smells of cinnamon and freshly baked bread filled the air with a cozy feeling, creating a perfect sense of what a mix of late summer and early fall might taste like. 

On September 3rd, the conversation on civic actions for food system transformation was opened up to a larger public. The day began with a hybrid panel discussion at the Baumhaus, in which Karen Wohlert (Baumhaus), Christian Bugge Henriksen & Luke Schafer (University of Copenhagen), Beatrice Walthall & José Luis Vicente Vicente (ZALF), Poppy Eyre & Dirk Wascher (Susmetro) and Lisa Haarhoff (Ernährungsrat Berlin) drew a connection between the current climate crisis, the EU project FoodSHIFT2030 and das Baumhaus as a food hub. 

Yet, the food hub would not exist without its wider network combining regional farmers, engaged citizens, and people form the local government. Therefore, the food hub network was introduced and represented by Simone Zeil (Ernährungsrat Brandenburg); Johanna Naatz (Auenhof / GemüseSyndikat); Lorena Unger (AG Urban); Ann-Christin Weber (Senate Department for Justice, Consumer Protection and Anti-Discrimination); Julia Scherer, District Office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg; Annette Jensen (Ernährungsrat Berlin) and Karen Wohlert (Baumhaus Berlin). The Baumhaus was filled with an enthusiastic atmosphere as people from many different walks of life came together to work towards a common goal: Building up just and resilient food systems. 

After three action- and knowledge packed days, the participants left Berlin, but took more than just their suitcases with them. Along with many fruitful conversations, the relevance and diversity of inspiring, engaging and empowering people were most certainly among the key messages.

If we want to foster a transformation towards healthy communities and resilient food systems, we rely on each other. Only through the value of mutual support and partnerships can we continue our journey towards a low carbon, plant-based and circular food future.

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