Earlier this month, we brought together speakers from Berlin, Ghent and Amsterdam to discuss how each of their food policy councils balance citizen engagement and political buy-in. One of the conversation’s recurring themes was how to get the structure of a council right in order to facilitate involvement from the community as well as ensure the decision-making process with the city government is transparent.

When thinking back on how the food policy council was originally set up, Lisa Haarhoff of Ernährungsrat Berlin (Berlin Food Policy Council) reflected that it needed to be both more dynamic and diverse. This has led them to adapt a sociocratic model (see webinar recording and slides for detail further down) which allows more participatory approaches that focus on dialogue, debate and consensus rather than voting.

“What would we do differently if we were to start again? We would pay more attention to structures that better and more effectively enable people to connect together and get involved. [Our new structure] helps us to be more flexible and react to the current climate.” Lisa Haarhoff of Ernährungsrat Berlin (Berlin Food Policy Council)

From the perspective of Arnold Arnold van der Valk, co-founder of the Amsterdam Food Council, the emphasis has been on shifting from “persons to practice” so that the functions of a council become embedded within the city. While there are many people motivated to transform the industrial food system to make it both more healthy and sustainable, there remains a need for more cooperation among institutions as well as reliable funding to sustain the time commitment that is needed to bring about lasting change.

“The elephant in the room… is funding.

We managed to get [the food policy council] going with almost full-time input of labour of two individuals. But you can’t keep the whole machine going with two people.” Arnold Arnold van der Valk, Amsterdam Food Council

In Ghent it has also taken time for trust to build between citizen collectives and the food council. For Maarten Crivits with Food Policy Council Ghent, he’s found that citizen participation can have a significant and positive impact on the city, but that it requires the council to take up issues that matter to the people. And when there are people who are funded to be involved, it is also important to ensure meaningful ways to participate for non-paid members as well.

“Gather interest around your goals. For instance, if you have a local food strategy with operational goals, do a survey, do interviews with the citizens and entrepreneurs of your city to see what kind of interest is there and use the energy of civil society, the energy that’s already there.” Maarten Crivits, Food Policy Council Ghent

Some of the key lessons from the discussion were best summarised at the end by our chair Beatrice Walthall from the Leibniz Centre for Agriculture Landscape Research (ZALF), who noted that although councils are still evolving in many cases, they also offer concrete ways for citizens to engage politically and instigate change in the food system.

“It’s a very dynamic field of action.

Things are emerging and growing, things are also collapsing because they didn’t work. But overall, we can see some new governance structures and modes emerging.

Communicate about the existence of food policy councils and communicate about the issues. Make people curious, it’s not just a theoretical dry way of lobbying. Food is a really active form of political engagement”, summarised Beatrice Walthall.

• Presentation Slides: available here!
• Take part in our innovation conference in Barcelona in October 
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The post Webinar key takeaways: Structuring food policy councils for citizen engagement appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

These are critical moments to demonstrate how food system transformation needs to be a key aspect of addressing the climate and nature emergency. Our most recent webinar showcased the work of Glasgow and Barcelona to highlight how cities are taking this matter into their own hands.  

• Presentation slides: available here
• You can download the Q&A here!

Ben Reynolds, the webinar chair from Sustain, opened the discussion by emphasising how little food and farming had thus far featured in international and national commitments to tackling climate change, despite it contributing between a third and a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, cities have stepped up to the plate to devise their own strategic action plans, which we now seeing being translated into policy and practical change.  

The Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration is one such example, as Sofie Quist?from?Nourish Scotland outlined. The Declaration’s aim is to put food on the climate agenda before, during and beyond COP26, which is taking place in Glasgow, by inspiring ambitious local government-level action. It was written using inclusive language in order to enable wide participation among sub-national governments, with over 40 cities across five continents already having signed. City and local governments from around the world are invited to join the movement ahead of COP26 by signing the Declaration.   

“What we argue needs to be on the table at COP26 is a participatory whole food system approach, which cities are clear leaders on, in order to deliver effective food and climate change policies and planetary health,” Sofie Quist 

Riikka Gonzalez from Glasgow Food Policy Partnership shared how their city’s new 10-year food plan translates this declaration into concrete actions. The city has a thriving sector of over 200 community food projects, but also has high levels of income and healthy inequalities. Therefore, a participatory approach was key to the food plan’s development, with over 80 organisations taking part, and improving access to fresh, fair, healthy, affordable food was integral throughout. Launched in June, the plan has 76 actions divided between six themes, many of which address climate change, such as increasing land available for growing food in urban areas and sourcing more food from local and low-carbon producers to be used in public sector catering. Signing the Declaration and hosting COP26 has been a major catalyst for the city to step up its work, to lead by example and to secure political support. 

This year Barcelona is the World Sustainable Food Capital, a nomination stemming from the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP). Amaranta?Herrero?from?Pla?Estratègic?Metropolità?de Barcelona (PEMB) spoke about how the city is using their host status for the seventh MUFPP in October to ensure sustainable food is at the center of the political and social agenda throughout 2021 by running a host of events and working towards a 2030 Food Strategy. They have also helped launched the Barcelona World Sustainable Food Capital, a commitment and toolkit for cities related to the transformation of food systems in order to tackle the climate emergency. It includes a set of core indicators to demonstrate the positive impacts this will have for cities, citizens and the planet.  

Finally, Alessandra Schmidt from Fab Lab Barcelona, one of the nine FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs (FAL), focused on how they use bottom-up approaches to build a bridge between food policy and citizens in the city. Barcelona has fostered an environment for food citizenship to flourish, with Fab Lab capitalising on this atmosphere by working with entrepreneurs to link food and tech, and to develop communities of practice in this area. Through their Food Tech 3.0 Acceleration Program they are accelerating ten initiatives, which will be driven equally by both society readiness as well as tech innovation. In addition, they are hosting a FoodSHIFT 2030 FAL showcase in Barcelona, within the Innovation Conference, on Monday 18 October focused on food system innovations, which will be a hybrid format of in person and digital access.    

“We have the political will, which is great, so how can we keep pushing forwards as a local actor towards this direction and participating in the decision-making at the table together,” Alessandra Schmidt.

Barcelona and Glasgow offer just two examples of the incredible work cities are doing to integrate policy and practical action around food and climate change, but there are many more leading the way. We look forward to the second half of 2021 bringing further attention to these issues and inspiring more people and place to get involved.     

• Encourage your city to sign the Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration 
• Take part in our innovation conference in Barcelona in October  
• Explore the work of the other FoodSHIFT 2030 Acceleration Labs 
• Join our newsletter to stay in the know about future webinars and events (scroll down!)

The post Webinar key takeaways: Getting food on the climate agenda appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

Creative Food Cycles Based On Digital Technologies

How can digital technologies innovate food cycles? Creative Food Cycles Symposium presents and discusses innovative and creative scientific contributions in the transformation of space and society for creating sustainable futures through food cultures, particularly connected to creative performances, responsive digital technologies, co-creation of change.

The Symposium is aimed at an international academic audience, exploring novel ideas, knowledge and practices in addressing the manifold linkages of food-creativity-space together with project partners, representatives of international institutions, invited experts and key-note speakers. Hence, it will establish a common ground to contribute to the debate on circular economy and collaborative cities in Europe, to implement the objectives of the EU Urban Agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Join FoodSHIFT 2030 at 13:45 (CEST) on Friday 18th September to discuss ‘Creative Food Cycles Based On Digital Technologies’ ?? 

Sign up now!

The post FoodSHIFT to feature at the Creative Food Cycles Online Symposium appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

‘City-region perspectives on providing food for the vulnerable during the COVID-19 crisis’

FoodSHIFT 2030 presents its first public webinar on these city-region responses to COVID-19, inviting participants to address the key aspects of establishing solidarity and citizen-driven initiatives to support resilience in local food systems. As part of the FoodSHIFT 2030 project, Ewoud Dutellie, from the municipality of Oostende, Belgium, and Hugues Fortuna,  from the municipality of Avignon, France, will be sharing insights from the emergency responses in their respective areas. The webinar will then include a panel discussion with guest speakers Stefania Amato, Network Manager at C40, Kemi Akinola, chair of Wandsworth Food Partnership and CEO of Be Enriched and Brixton People’s Kitchen, and Ana Moragues-Faus, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Barcelona and visiting fellow at the Sustainable Places Institute at Cardiff University and author of ‘Distributive food systems to build just and liveable futures.’

The COVID-19 crisis saw city-regions from across the world respond to the emergency in a number of ways, with some local initiatives truly standing out. The latter have the potential to inform other urban communities on how local and national governments, as well as the public sector, can ensure the most vulnerable have access to food, including those on very low income and in isolation.

Sign up now!

This webinar is on June 23rd at 1.30 – 3 pm (CEST) and is free to all.

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