On February 15 and 16, the University of Bologna and Flytech participated in the NovelFarm 2023, the international conference and trade show. A two-day international conference brought together experts in the fields of indoor and vertical farming, aquaponics, hydroponics, and integrated farming.
One of the major gatherings in Italy’s agriculture industry, NovelFarm, welcomed over 3300 visitors, including businesses, investors, academics, and general public who were curious about urban and indoor farming.
Among the exhibitors were the most significant players from advanced soilless agriculture, including the FoodE Partners University of Bologna and Flytech, who presented FoodE and the aeroponic vertical farm modules and Flytech LED lights which are used in the FoodE pilot project Alma VFarm. AlmaVFarm is an experimental vertical farm located in Bologna and managed by the Agricultural and Food Science departments of the University of Bologna.
Moreover, Dr. Giuseppina Pennisi from the University of Bologna presented the objectives of FoodE and its multifunctional initiatives and pilots during her speech “Toward more sustainable, resilient and community-driven urban food systems: experiences from the European project FoodE - Food systems in European Cities”.
Who doesn’t recognize this: you buy just too many groceries, leaving leftovers that eventually disappear in the trash. It may sound like a small issue, but all households combined provide a significant surplus of unused food. Add to that the waste of companies, where loads of canteen lunches remain untouched, or the hospitality industry that sometimes orders too much from their supplier. This results in a global food waste of 2.5 million (!) tons, accounting for one third of the total production and $1 trillion in total value. In view of a growing world population with a growing food shortage, these facts are quite disturbing.
Fortunately, this does not go unnoticed. Governments and corporate campaigns respond to the prevention of food waste. Tackling the problem will have a positive effect on several facets of the food chain. For example, more targeted orders from the hospitality industry influences what is produced, which in turn affects the consumption of raw ingredients. Most partners in the food chain believe that it is valuable to tackle this issue, but find it challenging to align the processes and bring together the needs of everyone involved.
Luckily, several initiatives seek to turn the tide. Taking as an example the Netherlands, where both small and large initiatives try to offer a solution to food waste. On a small scale, there is a wonderful example in the municipality of Albrandswaard (Province South-Holland), where the community collects food surpluses in nearby cabinets. Everyone can place packaged products or preservatives in the community cabinets so that local residents can take them out. Think of products such as pasta, flour, rice and preserved vegetables. It works like a barter: you place something in the cabinet and can take a product in return. The aim is that less food will go to waste and people who are financially struggling will be supported by their local community.
On a larger scale, an increasing number of organizations are starting to take seriously their social responsibility. A wonderful example can be seen in the new collaboration between Unilever and Too Good to Go, a platform that fights food waste. Through an app people are connected to food suppliers who are selling their leftover products that are close to their expiry date. The app allows to reserve and pick up products for a reduced price from nearby restaurants, bakeries or supermarkets that would otherwise be thrown away. What started as a pilot in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, now also took over Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Norway. The app currently has 3.5 million users in the Netherlands alone and has already saved more than 16 million meals. In addition, Too Good to Go introduced a new ‘look, smell, taste – before you waste’ label on their packaging, encouraging consumers to rely on their senses rather than the expiry date.
FoodE fully supports these and many other initiatives that raise awareness about food waste reduction and contribute to a more sustainable use of our raw materials. Because, when we all become more mindful with food on our planet, feeding the next generations will become less of a challenge.
Wildfires, pandemic, heat waves, floods, etc. Are these anomalies a sign that nature is taking revenge for all the damage we as humans have caused? This is a question that Donia El Himer, an employee of the Cité Maraîchère of Romainville asks herself.
The Cité Maraîchère of Romainville is a vertical indoor farm that provides the residents of the city with chemical-free fruits and vegetables. The employees form part of a professional integration project carried out by the municipality. They didn’t have any professional experience in this field. However, through various workshops, they learned quite a lot about gardening, waste sorting, compost, food sustainability and other environmental themes. Even though their lifestyle didn’t change after working here because they already used to carry out ecological actions in their homes, the knowledge that they gained helped them get a better understanding of nature and become more aware of the environmental challenges.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2022 highlights the urgency of tackling climate change. According to this report, climate change has aggravated food and water insecurity and caused extreme weather disasters like heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and floods. It has even affected the physical and mental health of many. There is also the loss of species and extinctions.
We need to adapt to the situation. The environment is now an essential factor that we need to take in consideration before doing anything. Therefore, we need to educate ourselves on the environment to fight the climate crisis. Education is the key to finding solutions to fight against the catastrophe that awaits us.
The Cité Maraîchère raises awareness on the climate crisis by offering educational workshops to each age group on various environmental themes such as nature in the city, eco-citizenship, gardening, food sustainability, etc. It gives you the keys to lead a sustainable life that doesn’t harm the environment. For instant, people can come here to learn about composting. For the food lovers, there are cooking workshops where you can learn how to cook sustainably. If you more of an artist, you can go there to create jewellery amongst other things from used or recovered objects.
The vertical farm proposes various gardening activities like making insect houses to the public. After attending a gardening workshop there, you gain enough knowledge to grow your garden at home. They even introduce gardening children. This activity is an excellent way too connect with nature and is very beneficial for the Earth. An organic garden improves soil and air quality. It helps mitigate global warming that is caused by an excess of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that trap heat in the atmosphere. Plants help by taking in carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Furthermore, introducing children from a young age to plants will make them respect our planet more as they will understand the importance of plants from childhood.
During the visits and the workshops at the vertical farm, people are curious and want to learn more. Some even say that doing the different gardening activities at the urban farm makes them want to do gardening in their own home. This proves that maybe people who might not be interested in nature at first can also convert themselves into nature lovers.
The Cité Maraîchère of Romainville through their different workshops gives people the opportunity to reconnect with nature. This is exactly what we need to do in order to attack global warming. To save our beloved planet we need to connect with her. We need to understand her works in an effort to better protect her.
According to a study done by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 45.7 % of the fruits and vegetables produced in the world go to waste. Most of this waste can be avoided by a better management of unsold or ‘ugly’ fruits and vegetables. Millions who are starving could have been fed with this produce that went to waste. Therefore, it is extremely important to reduce food waste as much as possible.
This problem is seen in not only supermarkets but also on farms. In fact, the first level of food waste is produced on farms. Staggering levels of food waste come from farms due to the weather, pests, lack of demand, etc. Micro-farms and urban farms aren’t spared either.
How can we better manage this food waste? Conserving or processing the fruits and vegetables before they rot are ways to reduce food waste. The association, Micro-ressources takes on this challenge with surplus fruits and vegetables. Located in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, Micro-ressources specializes in the sector of scientific and technical activities. For instant, it studies the logistics of urban farms. During their study, they discovered the Cité Maraîchère of Romainville. This urban farm is facing a surplus of tomatoes this summer due to the lack of buyers. The neighbourhoods of Romainville are almost empty in August because many of the residents leave for vacation this time of the year. Henceforth, very few of the tomatoes grown at the Cité Maraîchère will be sold.
Micro-ressources will be partnering with the Cité Maraîchère to transform these unsold tomatoes into ketchup. This will save those red fruits from ending up in the garbage.
This initiative taken by Micro-ressources shows how many enterprises or organisations can easily lower food waste by partnering up with other companies or associations and by coming up with new ideas to better utilise surplus fruits and vegetables. This initiative will also encourage dialogue and solidarity between different organisations.
Weeds are often demonised as wild awful plants but some of them are superfoods. For example, nettles. Even though it has skin-irritating properties, it is a superfood. Nettles contain high levels of minerals such as calcium, vitamin C and iron. They contain more iron than spinach and more calcium than milk.
By learning about the culinary possibilities of these ‘bad plants’, people can change their perception on weeds. This is exactly what Bénédicte Gory aims to do.
After working at LVMH for 15 years, Bénédicte felt a need to reconnect to nature. She started by exploring her own garden. She learned about benefits of the weeds growing outside her house. From there, her start-up, LE JARDIN E(S)T LA RECETTE (the name of this start-up is a word play - The garden is/and the recipe), was born with the help of her associate, Aurélie Carrillo. This start-up enhances the weeds that grow in private gardens. Fruits, vegetables, herbs, and wild plants from the garden are harvested by member gardeners. Once dried, they are assembled in reusable glass jars to form condiments with fantastic flavors.
LE JARDIN E(S)T LA RECETTE is anchored in a social, solidarity and zero waste approach. Bénédicte, the co-founder of this amazing initiative, wants to allow every owner of a garden to reconnect to the nature as well as receive an additional income by selling the plants of their garden. The goal for them is to eventually change their career path to become farmers because soon France might face a shortage of farmers. As INSEE points out in one of its studies, published in 2020, the decline in the number of farmers has been continuous since the beginning of the 1980s, going from 1.6 million workers to 400,000 today.
Our great-grandparents used weeds in their kitchen, and they used to consider them as wild and indigenous plants. With modern technology, we have everything at the tip of our fingers. However, instead of ordering online and running to the supermarkets when we need an ingredient, we should search for the ingredients in your own garden like our ancestors. If we don’t have the ingredients required, we can replace them with another ingredient that gives the same flavour as them. For instant, nettle can replace basil in your pesto. Furthermore, we should avoid importing fruits and vegetables that are not available in our country during a certain season. Instead, we should conserve those fruits and vegetables during the season in which we can find them locally. For example, we can dry them or make a jam with them.
Moral of the story: “You cannot grow a meticulous garden without pesky weeds. Let these savage superfoods grow freely.”
For those who want to get their hands on the products of LE JARDIN E(S)T LA RECETTE, they can order them online. For the residents of France, the condiments will soon be available at the Cité Maraîchère of Romainville as the start-up is relocating there.
This is an invitation for any city to join the bee friendly movement that started in Ljubljana, with support of the Interreg Program financed project Urbact (www.urbact.eu).
Ljubljana’s BEE PATH, a network of stakeholders, a touristic and educational path, as well as an incubator for development of new entrepreneurship ideas was rewarded with the URBACT good practice award back in 2017. This acknowledgement has given Ljubljana the opportunity to transfer its BEE PATH good practice into five other EU cities covering the majority of climate conditions for beekeeping, various types of bees, as well as different situations related to the public perception of bees among the general public. Very divers, yet excellent results in partner cities from Amarante (Portugal), Bydgoszcz (Poland), Cesena (Italy), Hegyvidek – XII District of Budapest (Hungary) and Nea Propontida (Greece), confirmed the transferability of the BEE PATH good practice. Through raising awareness of the importance of bees, and hand in hand with everybody living and acting in the cities, we are contributing to a cleaner and greener environment, and also to the preservation of natural resources and biodiversity. This project proves that every city can create favourable conditions for sustainable urban beekeeping.
One of the results is the beautifully crafted box (picture below) with typical honey samples produced by bees, living in the six city centres of EU towns that have high environmental standards which are also reflected in the quality of the honey. Ljubljana contributed a sample of forest honey, Amarante a multifloral sample, Bydgoszcz nectar and honeydew (maple) honey, Cesena a linden honey sample, Budapest acacia honey and Nea Propontida a very special sample of pine honeydew with a flavour of oak forest honey (my personal favourite!). Just 150 of such sets have been manufactured for the whole of Europe and it is not easy to get a hold of them! There is also an empty space in the box – to be filled with a newly joint city’s typical honey sample. With this act, a city becomes a part of the Bee Friendly City Movement.
In the northwestern tip of France, nearby the Belgian border, the ‘Canal de Bourbourg’ separates two different worlds. Where on one side, people see the big oil- and chemical companies, on the other side people see an oasis of greenery.
This place is called the French Grande-Synthe, which has a remarkable socio-ecological policy since many years. And with success. After some big energy cuts by the city government, money has been freed up in recent years to get three large organic city farmers started. Nowadays, these farmers ensure that all school cafeterias can serve organic food without pesticides to their students. The city government also invested in public transportation, which now runs completely on bio-gasses and is free for all residents.
However, even Grande-Synthe knows a downside. The green transition glosses over the social crisis that is deeply rooted in this ‘commune’. Unemployment is above average at about 30 percent. Same applies to the percentage of residents living in poverty. This raises the question, what made the city government still choose to invest in free public transportation and organic food? According to former Mayor Carême, “what’s good for the environment is good for poor people.”
Luckily, the good example set by the municipality is being followed by many residents who now have their own organic food gardens. A group of residents from the poorest neighborhoods had the idea to establish organic food gardens near the apartment complexes. Nowadays, the city has 6 large organic food gardens. Thereby proactively executing urban farming and providing many families with cheap organic food. However, this is not even the biggest benefit. In fact, the organic food gardens bring people together! Many residents of poor neighborhoods join forces and farm together. Having a purpose ensures that even the poorest residents who have to deal with financial sorrows now produce healthy food for themselves and their loved ones.
This beautiful example proves the power of urban farming. As scientist L. Acton (2011) confirms: social food gardens “offer an opportunity for excluded groups or individuals to participate and become involved in a project.”
The FoodE partner Urban Beekeeper Association of Slovenia (Društvo Urbani čebelar) raises awareness of the importance of urban beekeeping and promotes greener and healthier urban environment while allowing citizens to be in touch with bees. By collaborating with prisons in Ljubljana, the association involves inmates in the beekeeping process.
As part of the project, Slovenian Urban Beekeeper Association is working together with the Faculty of Design and the Open Ward Igo Prison to build beehives and establish bee colonies around the prison. Prisoners who participate in the beekeeping program will learn a new skill that will aid in their rehabilitation.
In this context, the Association organised a project from 30 May until 5 July 2022. As part of the event, the 3rd year students of Interior Design, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jasna Hrovatin and in the co-mentorship of Gorazd Trušnovec, prepared proposals for a meaningful and original arrangement of the beehives in the garden.
The group of the 2nd year students of the Visual Communication course, under the mentorship of Nataša Šušteršič Plotajs developed graphic motifs for the mural based on research into ethnological traditions, stylisations of Helena Vurnik’s motifs, with contemporary artistic interpretations and thematic colour scales. It is a concept of simple graphic motifs, with illustrative elements, which also carry a message.
An important element of the implementation stage of the design is the graphic templates for the stencils, which were used by the prisoners to hand-paint the beehives.
Re-Belle shapes the future of food. The French association, established in 2014, combines waste reduction with social justice. They consist of people who are reintegrating into society and produce quality jams of unsold fruit.
Each year, almost 45% of fruits and vegetables produced in France end up as leftovers. The food is not beautiful enough, too ripe or labeled rotten and therefore end up in the bin. Re-Belle’s mission is to save these fruits by processing and transforming them in delicious French delicacies. Each week, Re-Belle collects 600kg of unsold fruits in 15 partner supermarkets in the Ile de France (Paris) region.
Once the food is collected, they are sorted, washed, and cut before they are cooked. Per week, the leftovers produce 1500-2000 pots of different jams. The natural craft is sold in more than a hundred local supermarkets and grocery stores. No better example to illustrate recycling: from waste, to production, to locally sold fresh food.
In addition, these types of projects shape our future as they add the social justice. Re-Belle provides jobs for 23 people, of which 15 are local inhabitants in a professional integration process. Moreover, the association offers workshops for locals to raise awareness around waste reduction. To date, more than 1500 people learned different ways to re-use fruits and vegetables.
Instead of letting flower seeds go to waste unused, imaginative citizens of Oslo collect them from public beds and thus set new impulses for the conception of circular, sustainable and inclusive food systems.
The late summer sun bathes the city in a warm light, and ripe apples, blackberries and tomatoes lure to be harvested in the gardens of Oslo. However, it is now time to think outside the box. Literally. The harvest not only supplies us with vegetables and fruit, but also with the sowing for the next year: when the flowers have faded and the fruit clusters turn brown, the seed harvest begins.
This has also been recognised by the citizens of Oslo, who collect the seeds from public flower beds to use them for their gardens or to create new wildflower meadows, as has been dome in Gamle Oslo. The hottest tip of Helene Gallis, director at the Oslo-based think-and-do tank and FoodE partner Nabolagshager, is to take a trip to the plaza by the City Hall or to the flower bed near the Royal Palace where she harvested Cosmos and marigold seeds for her balcony.
What appears to us at first glance as theft is a resource-saving method of growing new plants. In that the output from the current year is used again in the following year instead of remaining unused, the informal Norwegian model corresponds to the circular economy approach, in which the waste of natural resources is minimised through reuse and recycling.
Moreover, practices like collecting seeds brings us closer to nature and the ecosystem that enables our existence. Often, we no longer know where our food comes from, how it was produced and what is in it. This is not so much an argument for nostalgic as a prerequisite for conscious consumer behavior: we can only make more responsible decisions if we know what is in the product.
Hence, the citizens of Oslo do it differently: instead of buying seeds in the supermarket after they traveled a long way through packaging stations and highways, the seeds are collected directly from the nature. In projects, such as the Norwegian Seed Savers Network or the Linderud Community Garden which is a collaboration between the Urban Environment Agency, Bjerke District, Nabolagshager and the Museums in Akershus, experienced seed savers show beginners which seeds are ready to take home. In doing this, they promote not only a low emission but also a cost-effective way of consumption, making high-quality food accessible to all parts of the population.
While collecting seeds without paying may not seem right at first, it stands for a future model that appears many times more legitimate than the exploitation of natural areas for the profit of a limited number of private actors: the community use of public areas for the local and environmentally friendly production of food. This has been also recognised by the Deichman Grünerløkka library, which not only puts an extra emphasis on books about plants and gardening, but also – as the librarian Kaja Ahnfelt explains – offers to borrow seeds in spring and early summer, and if the crop is successful, to return seeds from the same plants back in autumn.
The seed saving model in Oslo reminds us that the resources of our planet are a public good to which, on the one hand, all people should have equal access and, on the other hand, because of their preciousness, require special protection and thrift. Finally, the model fits in with the government’s strategy, entitled “Food Nation Norway”, that aims to create sustainable and more healthy food systems by 2030. Using the potential of public beds can be a perfect start.
After several debates and workshops with the inhabitants and the Remanufacture studio, Romainville is proud to inaugurate its new public street furniture, a big landscaped table for neighborhood life: the Végétable!
The Cité Maraîchère is an innovative market gardening indoor farm in the heart of the city belonging and managed by the Municipality.
Being a link between citizens and agriculture, one of its stakes is to include the citizens in its management and to be a driving force to educate people to sustainable food systems. Several debates and workshops were organized between April and June 2021 on what should be planted in the gardens on the side of the vertical farm and what should be built in front of the farm as street furniture to activate it as a new public place for the neighborhood, both being directly available to the inhabitants at all times. Thus 6 different gardens were co-designed and co-planted by the inhabitants and the farm. As for the public furniture, citizens were again consulted with several workshops organized by the Remanufacture and the Cité Maraîchère to discuss and build together this extraordinary big ring shaped table. Il will include a small landscape in the center – a vegetable table, a tree or even a pond were discussed - to be designed with the inhabitants and already includes different seats or not to enable all be them kids, adults, seniors or disabled to enjoy this new fixture.
After much work with the help of employees of the Cité Maraîchère (people part of an integration project carried out by the City), the Remanufacture and the inhabitants, the Romainville citizens are proud to inaugurate the outside spaces of the vertical farm, especially this new piece of furniture built using recycled wood – from the frame of a 1910 building - and good old fashioned manual work!
WASABI (Wallone de Systèmes innovants en Agriculture et Biodiversité urbaine - Wallonne Platform for Innovative Systems in Agriculture and Urban Biodiversity) was established in the autumn of 2020. As a vast teaching and research platform dedicated to urban agriculture but also urban and peri-urban diversity, it is carried by the Liège University at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech. This pedagogical tool of 5 ha was developed for students, urban farmers, and citizens. It enables them to discover all the techniques used in urban agriculture. This creates a research space where agronomists, botanists, urbanists, pathologists, architects, and other scientific actors collaborate to improve sustainability, biodiversity, or crop protection for professional urban farms.
On this platform, both high-tech and low-tech innovations and technologies will be tested. It will also identify and measure ecosystem services rendered by urban agriculture. Four main themes constitute this platform:
According to Haïssam Jijakli, Agronomy Professor directing the C-RAU (Centre de Recherche en Agriculture Urbaine - Research Center in Urban Agriculture) at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, this is about “creating synergies between the academic world, decision makers and businesses to develop new cropping techniques adapted to urban and peri-urban environments, socially, ecologically and economically accessible to the greater number”. WASABI wants to carry out research and offer innovative solutions and advice to urban farmers.
WASABI would not exist without the support of the European Union and the Wallonia region with a funding of 2.5 million euros.
His Majesty the king of Belgium inaugurated the opening of the platform by planting a pear tree.
The site will give you access to the latest finds of the platform.
In the south of Paris, a new local food initiative is paving the road for sustainable and local food production in Europe. The ‘Ferme de l’Envol’ is a 75-hectare agro-ecological farm supported by French investments for more than 3 million euros, which is being created in the South of Paris. It will eventually employ 13 people and, inspired by permacultural principles, eight new houses for the farmers will be built.
Mobilising all planning and economic development stakeholders of the territory, the ‘Ferme de l’Envol’ is to be both an experimental laboratory for new environmentally friendly technical practices and a real farm producing healthy food. To ensure its success, the farm creates an ecosystem comprising organic and agro-ecological farmers, public stakeholders such as ‘Coeur d’Essonne’ (conurbation authority of 200 000 inhabitants) or the water syndicate, key stakeholders of processing and distribution, restaurants, start-ups, citizens, and researchers.
The farm will include several activities: production and sale of organic fruits and vegetables (market gardening and orchard), poultry farming with an eye on animal welfare as well as a cereal/bakery activity. The farm has been ‘eco-conceived’ from the beginning, using the latest innovations in terms of environmental protection and zero waste approach. The farmers will be housed on-site with gravity rainwater recovery from nearby firms’ roofs. The material question is taken into account as well for the smallest negative impact possible on the environment. Composting and waste management are also included with a view to using as much as possible circular economy. Logistic is also included in the management to make this farm replicable and exemplar to other farmers.
Moreover, farmers’ status is asserted with a just and guaranteed revenue, a fair social protection and the implication in the farm governance. The farm’s innovative juridical status is a SCIC (Collective Interest Cooperative Society) and its corporate structure has to be diverse and the farm is managed by public bodies, economic stakeholders, local associations and citizens.
Author: Véronique Saint-Ges & Agnès Lelièvre, AgroParisTech
Can you imagine that one day you enter your local grocery store and only empty shelves without any food await you there? Baskets where you usually choose between apples, pears, zucchini, tomatoes… all empty. We presented this “one day” to customers in Slovenia, for them to see how it would be like. In a world without bees, you probably would not find your favourite fruit and vegetables. Bees are responsible for pollinating as much as 70% of our food. Despite being dependent on them, we are still endangering them and reducing their population. If we continue like this, there will be no more food on store shelves anytime soon. A world without bees will also become a world without us!
An initiative, in cooperation with the advertising agency New Moment, the Slovenian Beekeepers’ Association and the domestic supermarket chain Tuš from the city of Celje was launched in Slovenia. Customers in one of the Tuš stores were able to see what life would be like without bees. On the last World Bee Day, May 20, products that depend on bee pollination were removed from the shelves at the local supermarket. Customers were surprised and shocked, and most importantly were made aware of the extent to which their lives depend on bees.
A number of empty shelves awaited them, along with an explanation that the products are not available because they depend on pollination and would probably not exist in the world without bees. This initiative has a successful follow-up in 2021 - local beekeeping clubs received similar panels to be delivered to their local food stores and exhibited on the fruit & veggie shelves, reminding customers of the importance of pollinators.
In Slovenia, we are well aware of the threat to bees. We are in favour of them, we respect them, and we strive for their survival. Upon the initiative of several Slovenian national institutions, the UN declared May 20 World Bee Day. Slovenia was also among the first in the EU to ban the use of certain pesticides, dangerous to the bees, already in 2011.
The city of Celje has already joined the project Planting Indigenous Honey Trees and will give a tree to every newborn. Slovenia’s capital – Ljubljana – is a bee-friendly municipality as well, with a number of activities, along with a bee-trail in the city. It would be great if cities around Europe would join forces in preserving the bees and making the cities more bee-friendly in general.
Each of us can contribute to the preservation of bees and other important pollinators. Especially if we know that our survival depends on their wellbeing. We can plant honey plants on balconies, terraces, and gardens, encourage urban and organic gardening and raise awareness of the importance of bees to younger generations. The cities should avoid using pesticides and herbicides when managing public areas. The least - and at the same time the most - each of us can do is to support local beekeepers. Instead of honey imported from a faraway place, which could be of questionable quality, let us choose domestic honey from local beekeepers and thus also support the continuous care of the bees, already living in our vicinity.
Author: Renata Zamida, Društvo urbani čebelar
For a long time, the idea of a city farm was just a vision. But that vision might become reality in the City of Wuppertal, in the district of Arrenberg. The district of Arrenberg lives on a vivid interaction of the inhabitants and entrepreneurs, who founded a common association in order to develop a more sustainable and future-orientated neighbourhood. Therefore, they want to become a climate-neutral district by 2030. Moreover, the overarching goal is the socially responsible interconnection of working and living in the city. Against this background, the Arrenberg serves as a good starting point for the development of an innovative city region food system.
The Arrenberg farm is the research object of a feasibility study, which aims at a closed-loop economy as a resource-friendly production method. The plan anticipates a production in which each unit delivers goods for human nutrition or serves as a precursor for the following production units. Consequently, the project’s name “close the loop – new urban food” is not only a slogan but an overall concept. The planning considers all dimensions of sustainability. Ecological sustainability focuses on the saving of water as an essential resource. The social dimension aims at job creation and educational offers, while the economic part tries to tie the purchasing power in the region.
It all starts with the mushroom cultivation. By using wood processing and coffee waste, the farm creates a substrate for mushrooms. The result is a healthy protein source with small space requirements, which can be used in the kitchen as well as for the next production unit. In the second module, insects are grown for several applications. On the one hand, they can be used as a meatless alternative for burgers. On the other hand, the tiny crawling animals may replace fish meal, which is used by the industry in order to ensure the protein content in fish food, used in aquacultures.
Fish food will be used in the fourth module, but beforehand it should be mentioned that the third unit contains the cultivation of algae. These aquatic plants have become a great food trend due to their ingredients, that are considered as healthy. But coming back to the fish production. Fish and crustaceans will be kept jointly in aquaponics. Especially shrimps are known as a luxury food and obtain high-profit margins. Otherwise, the excrements will provide the fertilizer for the vegetable production. Under controlled growth condition vegetable can be cultivated throughout the whole year without long transport routes. Additionally, the product range gets supplemented by microgreens. This multifaceted production is the starting point for cooperation with local gastronomy, retail, farmers and educational institutes. Emphasizing the meaning of local networks and ingenuity.
Authors: Bernd Pölling and Claudia Wiese - Fachhochschule Südwestfalen (SWUAS)
Young people with disabilities can sometimes struggle with self-confidence and autonomy. Urban horticulture is an increasingly popular way of helping them address these issues. Scientists from Department of Agricultural Sciences of University of Napoli Federico II meet Ivan, Chiara, Claudio, Federico, Ilaria, Enrico, Lucio, Alberto, and their therapists every Saturday morning to grow seasonal vegetables at Orto Più (by Si può dare di più Onlus), a patch of land on the Hill of Posillipo in the City of Napoli. This initiative is part of FoodE, a European-wide project to promote sustainable and local food systems.
Horticulture has been recognised as a tool to improve physical activity, social skills, and engagement for people with mental and physical diseases. It includes repetitive actions such as digging and watering, making observations about plant growth and relating plant life cycle to human life. It seems that taking care of plants can build up the self-confidence and increase enthusiasm towards horticultural activities in our young friends.
The participants cannot wait for the weekly rendezvous to the point that they always arrive ahead of schedule. One Saturday morning, weather was amazingly beautiful, despite the previous rainy days, blue sky kissing the horizon line of the see under a shining sun and fennels were ready to be harvested. Fennels taste better when you harvest them by yourself and fulfil the mid-morning yearning. In view of soil bedding, guys were properly recharged and able to keep on digging alternately. Luckily, the deep black volcanic soil of the site was already well-drained and dry.
When the ground is wet, activities move from the soil to the table and we all find our satisfaction in root cutting of Crassula arborescens or transplant of cabbages…into the bottle-pots. Once the work is done, the young growers bring their own potted plants back home. Every time they provide information on the progresses in growth of their plantlets and on how they manage to take care of them.
Authors: Chiara Cirillo and Giuseppe Carlo Modarelli, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Napoli Federico II
If you would like to learn more about the activities focused on social inclusion held in Naples by Si può dare di più Onlus, visit their Facebook page and/or Instagram (@sipuodaredipiu).
Nabolagshager is recognised as one of the most respected and innovative stakeholders in urban agriculture in Norway. From their start in 2013, the company has been a renowned pioneer. As one of the partners of the FoodE project, it aims to push for sustainable and local food production throughout Europe.
Recently, as a part of the research for the coming national strategy of urban agriculture, the Norwegian Minister of Agriculture and Food, Olaug Bollestad, paid the pioneers a visit. Tasting this year’s award-winning honey harvest was an extra bonus.
- “It is inspiring to see how Nabolagshager, through urban farming and beekeeping, creates meaningful jobs for young people, and at the same time give us a greener city“, says Minister of Agriculture and Food, Mrs. Olaug Bollestad.
- “It is great to see that urban agriculture creates places where people can meet across cultures and social groups - and learn from each other. Green urban spaces with edible plants are important for both body and soul. We humans need contact with soil and nature for us to thrive”, says Bollestad.
According to the Minister, Nabolagshager provides inspiring examples of sustainability in practice. Both the environment, economy and the social elements are included here.
Locally sourced food and drinks are environmentally friendly and increasingly popular as corporate gifts. Small producers in both urban and rural areas provide tasty gift ideas. In Oslo, the honey products from Nabolagshager are good examples. Urban biodiversity and the inclusion of minority youth give the products extra value.
The Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food is currently working closely with five other ministries to create a national strategy for urban agriculture. The goal of this work is to facilitate urban agriculture in cities and towns. The ambitions for the strategies are high. It is expected to contribute to sustainable urban development, social inclusion, education and training, knowledge, innovation and climate adaptation. The strategy is expected to be launched in the first half of 2021.
Cooking food with freshly harvested vegetables from your garden may seem like a fiction for cities’ inhabitants. But this is not impossible. Over the last years, urban farming has gained in popularity and solutions have started to emerge. People with no or very small outdoor space become interested in growing their own food.
Urban farming is a relatively new way of farming that can limit the use of chemical inputs and shorten the distances between the farm and the fork. Cities can benefit from vertical and rooftop farming which open new frontiers for city-farmers. Overall, urban farming can contribute to solving health and economic problems. It can boost the local economy, create green jobs whilst increasing the access to affordable, healthy and fresh food. Urban farming also grants the opportunity to educate consumers about the environmental benefits of locally grown food. Let’s consider two options: community gardening and home gardening.
Just like food which tastes better when shared - gardening is more fun when done with others. In a community garden, you can meet up with other local farmers and collaborate with them on farming projects. This is a great way to get a first-hand experience in urban farming. Besides, the social benefits of community gardening are considerable. It leads to the inclusion of people from a variety of cultural and social backgrounds. Being part of a gardening community can contribute to a healthier lifestyle, more physical activity, and better food choices.
During a global pandemic, community gardening may not be an option. For this reason, over the past months, many consumers have started to grow their food at home. Regardless of the space available (small outdoor greenhouse, or balcony) you can still grow some of the seasonal vegetables and fruits at home. Before you start, it is important to understand, which crops are in season and which one is suitable for your small home-farm. Do not forget to consider your location and weather, when choosing crops. Just a small amount of vegetables and fruits grown locally can make a difference. People come to appreciate all the hard work that stands behind food production. Home gardeners also show interest in the origins of the food and make better, more sustainable food choices.
FoodE works to create more sustainable and resilient food systems by supporting local food initiatives. In this context, 15 pilot projects were launched in 12 European cities in 2020. The projects promote urban agriculture, social inclusion and food awareness. You can check out our pilot projects to learn whether you can join a local food project in your city!
Author: Nino Jikia - Hague Corporate Affairs
In this year’s annual Norwegian Honey Championship, a remarkable group of young, urban beekeepers from Oslo has won the silver medal in the category “honeydew”. The group was founded at the Oslo Living Lab, a project of Nabolagshager, and a partner of FoodE. At this year’s championship, a record number of beekeepers submitted their best honey, which has made the win of the Nabolagshager group even more impressive. The objective of this prestigious championship is to contribute to innovative thinking among beekeepers to increase the diversity of local honey products in the Norwegian market. According to Adam Curtis, research director at Nabolagshager, ‘the medal in the honey championship is a recognition of the youth creating a quality product that the market is interested in’.
Nabolagshager and the Oslo Living Lab
At the Living Lab, minority youth from H20 high schools can explore green jobs of the future and learn about entrepreneurship, sales, and marketing. Idil Akdos, the youth mentor at Nabolagshager, has said that for young people growing up in the middle of the city, beekeeping is a great way to learn about the magical, but laborious, connections between nature and food production. For her, it is important that youths develop a curiosity for and an understanding of sustainability and biodiversity through their tasks. The project also wants to build networks with other beekeepers. This way, the young beekeepers can learn more about the professional opportunities of the business, which can make them see beekeeping as a viable and exciting career path.
Nabolagshager and FoodE
The youth program of Nabolagshager is exactly what FoodE is aiming to achieve across Europe, namely to accelerate the growth of sustainable and resilient citizen-led urban food system initiatives by engaging not only academia and schools, but also citizens of all ages and food system start-ups. With its output, FoodE wants to pave the way for job creation, enhance local communities, and enable local communities to contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. With projects like the ones of Nabolagshager, local communities can contribute to these goals and make a difference in the local, urban food systems in their cities. Moreover, these projects can inspire the next generation to choose jobs that connect to a greener and more sustainable future. FoodE looks forward to seeing more of these projects across Europe to inspire and activate young citizens to invest in greener job opportunities and pave the way to a more sustainable food system.
On October 16th, we celebrate international World Food Day. This day was established in honour of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. World Food Days have been with us for 41 years. Food has always been of vital importance to humanity, but the challenges related regarding food have changed. When the FAO was established, the key challenge was to feed the world. Today, the focus is on doing so in a sustainable way. This year again the special programme is offering several activities that have been running in more than 150 countries around the World and are communicated through the slogan: “Grow, Nourish, Sustain. Together. Our actions are our future.” All people are invited to actively take part and share #FoodHeros mindset.
Food satisfies basic human needs and enables a healthy and happy life. Due to economic growth, technology development and globalization, food production and processing raised new challenges that we have not faced in the past. Mass production is becoming increasingly problematic due to climate change, as well as the problem of long transport routes, resulting in environmental pollution. Food safety, healthy nutrition and large amounts of food waste are the key concerns for developed countries in accomplishing their responsibilities for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
To reach these goals, we need to redesign our food systems. Luckily, putting our food systems on a sustainable path also brings new opportunities for operators in the whole food value chain. New technologies and scientific discoveries, combined with increasing public awareness and demand for sustainable food, will benefit all stakeholders. The EU is promoting the shift to sustainable food systems. To make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly, the European Commission has proposed the Farm to Fork Strategy as one of the pillars of the European Green Deal actions.
Hungry for data?
To see the challenges that face our food systems, one only has to look at the data. The world population is growing steadily and urban areas are being expanded further, erasing the borders between suburbia and rural. Today, 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. It is estimated that by 2050 this share will increase as two-thirds of the globe will be living in urban areas—that’s nearly 10 billion people! Rising globalization and urbanization have rapidly shifted urban consumption patterns around the world. EU farms used 173 million hectares of land for agricultural production, which results that around two-fifths of the EU’s land is farmed. Europe has 12 million farmers operating in a diversity of contexts and farm sizes and through the food chain employs more than 47 million people. Did you know that nearly 80 percent of all the food produced in the world is consumed in urban areas?
Food is unevenly distributed around the globe and access to varied and nutritious food is determined by the height of an individual’s income. Because of that, one-third of the world’s population is suffering from obesity or excessive weight on the one hand and on the other, 9.7 percent of the world population (around 750 million people) that were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity in 2019. Furthermore, the latest Eurostat data (2018) indicate that 33 million people in EU-27 countries cannot afford a quality meal (including meat, chicken, fish or vegetarian equivalent) every 2nd day. From the production to the consumption, food waste is painfully shifting and threatening the SDG goals. In the EU, around 88 million tonnes of food waste are generated annually with associated costs estimated at EUR 143 billion and globally, one-third of the food that is produced is wasted every year. Lastly, we have to remind ourselves how and in what manners the agriculture crops and food is produced and processed before it arrives on our plates. The data show that the global agrifood industry consumes 30 percent of the energy we create and accounts for 22 percent of the total greenhouse emissions. 50 percent of food production is at risk due to climate change, 20 percent of agricultural land is classified as degraded.
Our actions are our future.
The decisions we take as individual consumers are crucial. As aware and informed consumers, we influence the entire food chain. By choosing locally and traditionally produced high-quality food we can help to improve sustainability – in society and in the environment. In this way, individuals can improve their health and quality of life by changing their eating habits, while at the same time taking care of the planet. What can you do already today? Become inspired by some ideas here or actively take part in different activities supporting sustainable food systems here.
From farm to fork – zero km food
The concept of Zero km food (also Zero-mile food) emphasizes the importance of the food that is produced, sold and eaten locally. It has become established in an effort to get food from the farm to fork in the shortest time and distance possible. Such food is, of course, fresher, and retains more nutritional values as it is locally grown. The concept reduces pollution, as it does not require long food journeys, even from other continents. Ideally the food does not need additional storage or plastic packaging to be kept edible. Producers and providers of local agricultural products are committed to ensuring top quality, based on local specifics and methods of production and ensuring the traceability of food produced in accordance with the standards of organic or integrated production. They also ensure delivery with less storage and transportation costs. Supporting the livelihoods of small-scale food producers, improving the resilience of food production systems and encouraging the sustainable use of natural resources are all key to achieving Sustainable Development Goals. We can choose an enormous variety of fresh organic food because of farmers, who farm according to organic principles. Such food production, processing and providing is often a great challenge, but farmers persevere - because of love for nature, animals and fellow human beings.
The FoodE celebrates World Food Day #ThinkGlobalEatLocal
The FoodE project works in the direction of the key challenges presented. It will contribute to develop future-proof local food systems in urban areas. The project has united partners and initiatives across the Europe to exchange on solutions and involve public authorities, citizens, SMEs and non-profit organisations who will share ideas, best practices and tools with a view to supporting cities and regions in their transition towards innovative, sustainable food systems. FoodE will engage with local, citizen-led communities, identify success stories, and bridge these for knowledge exchange.15 pilot projects with local partners in 12 European cities/regions to show in practice that fresh and nutritious food can be sustainably produced in the urban regions, will be launched and widely promoted. These days, technology is by far the most sought-after ingredient in our diet. For this reason, a FoodE APP will be developed within the project to connect and innovative citizen-led food system stakeholders and consumers. This way, FoodE will pave the way for job creation, enhance local economies, and enable local communities to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, whilst increasing the relationships and interlinkages between the different actors of the food chains.
Authors: Tina Črnigoj Marc, Jerneja Penca - Arctur
The ambitious objective of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is to halve global food waste by 2030. Following a recent European initiative aimed to reduce residue generation, the president of the Generalitat of Catalunya promoted a regulation on food waste. This strategy promotes and accelerates the use and re-use of food by distributing it to vulnerable groups in the area.
One of the most important policy introduced by the Food waste reduction strategy is the regulation of gleaning, the ancient practice of harvest and collection, through an agreement with the farmer, of fruits and vegetables which are discarded from the commercial market. This is usually because of surplus production, disappointing sales, or aesthetic reasons. This practice is aimed to reduce the food waste and losses while making the task of the primary sector visible, as well as raising awareness about the value of food.
What can we do with unsold horticulture products in order to reduce food waste generated during the experiment in ICTA-UAB?
The opportunities generated by the impossibility to sell these products due to the absence of personal at the ICTA-UAB building and the increasing requests of food donations due to COVID-19 triggered an important collaboration between the Insitut and Espigoladors association. The goal is to fight for better food usage by providing vegetables to people at risk of social exclusion.
Throughout the year, the Sostenipra group develops several experimental crops in the rooftop greenhouse located in the ICTA-UAB building, as part of its research on the implementation of urban agriculture. Due to legal restrictions, these products cannot be sold and are normally shared among the personals.
Thanks to the collaboration between Espigoladors and Sostenipra group of ICTA-UAB, all the product that would be thrown away, in particular lettuce, tomato and beans, were collected and donated, responding to the problems of overproduction suddenly generated for the absence of personals. Such initiatives can inspire other city region food systems to become more sustainable, by collaborating with existing social initiatives. Until now has been realized three three round of harvest counting more than 100 Kg donated. The product has been brought by Espigoladors to the Xarxa de Suport de Cornellà and to the Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo, two social association located in the Metropolitan area of Barcelona.
What is the Espigoladors association?
Fundació Espigoladors is a non-profit organisation which fights against food waste and losses, while empowering people at risk of social exclusion from a transformative, participative, inclusive, and sustainable way. It is a social enterprise model that works for three social needs at once and interconnects them: fighting for better food usage, guaranteeing the right to a healthy diet, and creating job opportunities for collectives at risk of social exclusion.
Imagine you are a milk farmer involved in milk production. Standing in a long line of ancestors whose centre of life has always been passionate farm work. Now it’s your turn. You are well educated and your parents trust in your abilities. But the world has been changing more and even faster than ever before. Climate change threatens traditional and well-established crop production systems, the price for milk is low and the consumers demand a change in how food is produced. Sustainability and regional food production gain in social interest. Today’s story is about Stefanie and Michael Bauer. Two ambitious young minds that dear to jump in at the deep end by investing about 3 million Euro in the future of their farm. A risky but also inspiring way to differentiate oneself from the global milk market and take one’s fate in their own hands.
The couple lives in a dairy farm in Bavaria near the metropolitan area Nuremberg/Fürth. The nearby city limits the ability to grow in a conventional way by cultivating more farmland or keeping more dairy cows. Why not trying to take advantage of this hurdle and solicit for local value chains with nearby customers? No sooner said than done. Stefanie and Michael developed a business plan in order to convince the bank to give them a loan. However, getting started is always difficult but endurance and tenacity assured success. Today the two farmers own a stable for about 60 dairy cows with special focus on animal-welfare of the cows ensured by an animal-friendly system. Furthermore, the produced milk gets processed on farm into delicious yogurt and, of course, ice cream. The energy for the production and for 550 households in the surrounding area derives from their own biogas plant and a photovoltaic system, as a regenerative source of energy.
All products are sold under the brand name “rosa Kuh” which means “pink cow”. A creative and fresh name for cool products. The customer appreciates the product quality and the transparency of the production. Some supermarkets and farm shops in the region offer the product portfolio. Additionally, the availability gets complemented by a vending machine on the farm. Regardless of the time customers can do their purchase. Especially during the Covid-19 crisis, this way of contactless shopping meets the worries of the consumers.
If you would like to know more about Rosa Kuh and the Bauer´s Farm, click here or watch fantastic videos on their Youtube channel.
Authors: Claudia Wiese and Bernd Pölling - Fachhochschule Südwestfalen
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