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10th Eating City Summer Campus on Public Food Procurement: “New narrative to foster the needed shift of paradigm”

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Targeting 100% Organic, Local and Homemade Meals in Dordogne Secondary Schools

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Small plate, big impact

A healthy school meal for every child in every school - sign the petition here!

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2nd Eating City - Food Wave Ambassador Meeting

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Are you a Chef or a Champion?

Take part in the Cous Cous Challenge!

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7th Villarceaux Declaration

of Eating City Summer Campus 2019

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7th Eating City Summer Campus 2019

eip-agri.eu
eip-agri.eu

 

The scope of the workshop  also was to make optimal use of EU programs and fundings, for instance the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development which is the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy and  the Horizon 2020 EU research programmes, to create smart and sustainable food chains.

In order to stimulate actions, the workshop launched the “AMICI” format, where AMICI stands for Actions for Mobilizing Innovation through Cooperation and Interaction. AMICI are any actions such as forming a group, exchanging further information, investigating an issue deeper, etc…

This multi-actor event brought together around 80 participants from 20 different countries and was prepared in cooperation with representatives from the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) and the Polish Environmental Partnership Foundation.

The report on the EIP-AGRI Workshop Cities and Food : Connecting consumers and producers can be now downloaded here.

13 October 2016, Rome Italy - Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Workshop, FAO headquarters (Iraq Room).

Just prior to the Rome meeting the new Milan Pact Steering Committee cities were announced, with the election of 13 cities. The Steering committee elected Milan to be the president of the Steering Committee which will remain in place for two years.

The Technical Workshop on 13 October began with the presentation of the preliminary results of two surveys to signatory cities. The purposes of the surveys were to see what priorities of cities may shape the development of indicators and the availability of data to measure progress in implementation of the Pact.

A discussion of networks at global, national and local levels ensued, with input from C40, Eurocities, the European regional office of ICLEI, the Italian healthy cities network (Cittasane), francophone African cities, the US Conference of Mayors’ urban food policy directors task force and a Dutch network of cities.

One important discovery is that in existing networks at all scales, working groups including Milan Pact cities and other cities interested in the food policy issues as presented by the Pact have been initiated (e.g. C40, Eurocities, US Conference of Mayors,). In emerging networks Milan Pact cities have been at the forefront and non-signatory cities are included in these organizing efforts as well (e.g. African cities, Dutch network, Healthy Cities network).

The final part of the workshop was a presentation by FAO of technical peer-to-peer cooperation and exchange of practices drawing from past city-to-city exchange in the technical cooperation programme.

On October 14, World Food Day, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Mayors Summit occurred after the official World Food Day ceremony hosted by FAO. The FAO Director General opened the summit referencing links of the Mayors Pact to ending hunger, fighting climate change and to the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Supporting statements were made by Mayor Sala of Milan and representatives of the Italian Food and Agriculture Ministry and the City of Rome. Keynote addresses and a mayors debate brought out the many challenges and opportunities presented by efforts to implement the Pact.

The final part of the summit saw presentation of awards to 8 cities that were scored the highest among 53 submissions from 33 cities. The 6 special mention awards in the categories of the Framework for Action were presented to:

  • Quito for food production
  • Birmingham for sustainable diets and nutrition
  • Riga for food waste
  • Lusaka for social and economic equity
  • Toronto for food supply and distribution
  • Vancouver for governance

The 2 monetary awards for the highest score and challenging environment were presented to:

  • Mexico City for the highest score within a challenging environment
  • Baltimore for the overall highest score

All eight cities made presentations in the form of slides or video that will be shared on the Milan Pact website

The next city for the third annual Mayors Summit will be Valencia Spain in 2017.

Logo ISLE

ISLE is an association which was created in June 2012 to continue with the work carried out during a EU-funded Erasmus Networks project (2010-2013) which involved 39 partners from 30 European countries interested in fostering and transferring innovation concerning the concept of Sustainable development in the teaching of Life Sciences.
Consequently, the ISLE Network members are predominantly International Higher Education Institutions specialized in Agriculture and Food. They have been working on sustainability issues since 2010 and therefore, it was a natural choice to combine efforts on how to profoundly change the current paradigm of Sustainable Food Systems using interdisciplinary teaching, research and students in selected universities on one side and the expert professional experience of Pubic Food Service in Eating City on the other.
And what better way than to use the main link that exists between ISLE and Eating City: the training of future decision–makers in Higher education as a lever of change.
However, knowing that sustainable development can only be achieved through collective decisions, Higher Education must not neglect to work with entrepreneurs and elected representatives in order to make that change.
In fact, as the Coordinator of the ISLE funded project at the time, I had already learnt about the Eating City Platform as early as 2011 during one of the Consortium meeting in Italy and I was intrigued to find out more. Of course, working with and in Higher Education, I was also curious to know how Eating City was able to attract more than 25 young people (all from different backgrounds, but all concerned by better food systems) each year to attend a “Summer Campus” for more than 10 days to share their vision of public food services in cities worldwide!
Being unable to attend the 2015 edition, I was very excited to be able to travel in August this year to their annual venue, the beautiful “Bergerie de Villarceaux”, a sustainable eco-centre situated 60 kms from Paris with its on-site accommodation, restaurant and own organic farm.
Coming from a more academic professional background, it was interesting for me to see the model set-up used by Eating City to exploit cross-fertilization during their summer camp. All the participants and speakers were able to stay on site together for the whole camp which automatically created a wonderful melting pot of ideas and opinions, not to mention friendships. In between collaborative rapid-fire speakers, all addressing a different side of food systems sustainability were “Food Thinkers” and “Food Lab” sessions. These focused on the main points of the presentations and enabled the participants to put all their energy and creativity into contributing to the writing of a final text called the 4th “Villarceaux Declaration”: the final deliverable of the Summer Camp.
I am therefore, in my current role as the President of ISLE, very honoured to be an integral part of this new collaboration and am looking forward to the outcomes of the actions that ISLE and Eating City, together with our respective partners, will carry out in the near future.
Our first objective is to apply the Eating City Methodology to Higher Education and for the younger generations who wish to change the paradigm for sustainable food systems: the organisation of a “decentralised” Eating City Summer School, based on the same methods of the campus but with different selection process, to be held at the University of Teramo, Italy in 2017, is currently underway.

Climate Chance bridges the appointments of Paris  Cop 21 and Marrakech Cop 22. There is a clear necessity to incitate the civil society to become a protagonist of the discussions around climate issues and to create an alliance between all actors working on sustainable Food Systems. In one hand, food should be a pillar on the climate agenda for multiple reasons. On the other hand the climate emergence could allow the various existing initiatives on sustainable food to converge in a unified message.

If climate change is projected to cause lower yields from major crops, to increase price volatility for agricultural commodites and to reduce food quality, it is clear also that dominant food production systems are one cause of climate change (for instance, the amount of energy necessary to cultivate, process, pack and bring the food to European citizens’ tables accounts for 26% of the EU’s final energy consumption in 2013). Therefore food is at the core of climate issues as part of problematic issues and also as part of fundamental solutions to help humanity to survive such threat.

An holistic approach is necessary to tackle efficiently and sustainably such a complex issue in an action plan that integrates mitigation and adaptation measures to reduce the pace & magnitude of the changes in global climate being caused by human activities and the adverse impacts on human well-being resulting from the changes in climate that do occur.

In the absence of national or international efficient climate policy direction, cities are already at the frontline, directly called up to take practical measures to protect an increasing population from adverse climate impacts. In parallel, the idea that cities can be crucial to foster sustainable food systems is also gradually gaining ground. Through a deep cultural change, Cities Food Policies may turn food into a thread to connect all the main competences of the cities related to economic development, education, health, environment, solidarity, culture and leisure, governance, and give consistency to a synergic osmosis between cities and rural territories. In such context, Eating City platfom promotes pragmatic approach to build a model of food lifespan from origin to plate that makes possible to identify all food-related activities and infrastructures in and out the city to design an organization chart that connects all stakeholders and infrastructures, giving them a role and a responsibility to foster resilient/regenerative food systems.

Workshop AGR2 Climate Chance 2016

 

This was the thematic of the workshop : “The role of collective catering in the paradigm shift in food systems” chaired by Maurizio Mariani at the Climate Chance meeting in September 26th, which gathered Robin Gourlay and Giuseppe Mastruzzo, both members of the Steering Committee, Philippe Hersant, founder of Restaurants sans frontières, Guilhem Soutou, working on the Sustainable food and diets Program of Fondation Nina et Daniel Carasso, Amandine Lebreton from Fondation Nicolas Hulot, Rocio Llamas Vacas from Mensa Civica discussed on the role of Public food Service in the needed change of paradigm. Edith Salminem presented the 4th declaration of Villarceaux in a report prepared after the campus.

 

 

During one week, 23 young participants have met, discussed and put their energy and creativity in this text which is the 4th Villarceaux Declaration.

Discover their straightforward recipe to implement the change of paradigm for sustainable food systems.

ECSC group 2016

DONWLOAD THE VILLARCEAUX DECLARATION 2016

We are young professionals from 20 different European countries with different backgrounds and realities. We spent seven days discussing, sharing and confronting arguments and experiences about food. Together, we acknowledge that our current food system is in deep crisis. There is an immediate need for a paradigm shift.

In line with the Eating City platform, the Eating City Summer Campus 2016 acknowledges that the City is at the centre of the problem – and the solution. The Public Food Service presents a transformative opportunity to affect positive change. This is why our united message is addressed to the cities, in particular to the municipal decision-makers. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the fact that each layer of governance has its duties and responsibilities, from the EU to the local level.

The crisis we face today is a complex one. Currently, humans control Nature for their own benefit disregarding its agroecological resilience. We as the human race have forgotten that we are part of a bigger picture and that we are interdependent. This extractive model is no longer viable to ensure the future of the planet and human kind. The dominant claim to keep producing more food to feed the world is only making the problem grow bigger.

Hunger, obesity, non-communicable diseases, waste, processed food, ignorance, exclusion, inequality. This is on the menu. Right to food, food sovereignty, social inclusion, pleasure, flavour, cultural recognition, linking the urban and the rural. This is what we want.

In order to make our food cycle sustainable, we have identified two different and interconnected sets of actions. On the one hand, a new facilitating governance framework for food is necessary. On the other, we have to transform each step of the cycle from production through consumption to waste – and back to the land again.

This is our recipe:
FOSTERING Governance
Problem: There is a lack of political willingness and/or capacity to deal with sustainability issues and with food issues in particular. Consequently, cities’ actions are often fragmented and rely on personal motivation of individual City officials.
Solution: Fostering interdepartmental and cross-sectoral coordination will enable an integrated vision and positive synergies in cities sustainable food policies.
IMPROVING Public Food Service
Problem: Millions of meals are served daily by our cities. Unsustainable Public Food Service has a huge negative
impact on public health and environment.
Solution: Resilient and sustainable Public Food Service offers an immense opportunity to shift consumption patterns and ensure social inclusion.
JOINING Education and Engagement
Problem: Cities do not facilitate community engagement with sustainable food issues or the integration of these challenges into public education.
Solution: Investing in food knowledge and education will stimulate public awareness and encourage participatory food governance.
CONNECTING Food Production to Food Spaces
Problem: Inhabitants are disconnected from their food physically and conceptually. On the other hand, small to medium scale food producers lack the capacity to market access.
Solution: Activating and linking the physical, social and professional space for food will facilitate the shortening of food chains between consumers and producers, and encourage building relationships toward achieving sustainable food practices.
RETHINKING Food Waste
Problem: Food waste is regarded as an inevitable byproduct of an “efficient” food system tilted towards consumer responsibility. So far, the response has been reactive rather than preventive and city action has been fragmented. Responsibilities are not being distributed throughout the chain.
Solution: Waste management should be considered from pre-production through post-consumption. Cities should assess services and infrastructure in order to promote integrated actions.

Bon Appétit!

 

beauty and biodiversity of food

From 16 benefits identified by the International Sustainability Unit, the number rises up to 34.  Whatever you prioritize,you’ll find some benefits worth to advocate for, ranging from food security (and food rights), economic development, environment(al goods and services), health, democracy (governance) and culture.

To read the publication : Food in an Urbanized World: The Role of City Region Food Systems in Resilience and Sustainable Development
To read the reinforced argumentation with 34 propositions

Collaborative knowledge and understanding must be used to improve and reinforce such food common sense argument. Only doing this tirelessly we can break through the “Glass Ceiling” and push food issues into the highest arena of discussions, whether during international climate negotiations, or discussions about international trade agreements such as the on-going Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. (TTIP).

And there is little doubt that this list, a toolkit for policy makers, will keep growing as long as people innovate. Building up a dynamic and complex vision in which rural and urban territories, not only cities supported by surrounding regional food system, get more vital and  symbiotic.

There is no doubt about our current food system’s unsustainability, but in absence of a consensual scenario, world leaders are still tempted to foster economic levers to the detriment of environmental aspects. The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact’ s ratification by more than 133 cities worldwide highlights the will of cities to play a role in new cooperation models: urban centers are now home to half of the global population and they, strategically, bridge local and global interests. A flourishing context of innovative practices related to agriculture diversification, rural tourism and alternative food systems is echoed in the growing number of urban agriculture projects that transform cities in creative social spaces, where new solutions bringing significant improvement to sustainable food systems are designed and experienced (Schiff, 2013).

Such cultural effervescence must not overshadow the traditional competence of public food procurement as a leverage for the shift of paradigm.

18_kitchen copenhagen

Today, 40% of calories are consumed out of home. The total social foodservice market of all Member States in EU-28 was valued €82 billion in 2013 (GIRA Foodservice, 2014). This is low compared to the 1.048 billions of euro of the annual turnover of the whole european food and beverage industry (Fooddrink Europe, 2014), but certainly relevant to give a significant signal. By experiencing that an in depth “cooking from scratch” re-engineering approach is propedeutical to high quality public meals, several pionniers have already paved the way to re-qualify Public Food Service (PFS) (Lacourt and Mariani, 2015). An effort is now needed to broaden the interest and attractiveness of cities for such a competence that is still too often outsourced at the lowest price.

Starting from the definition of a specific activity code to assess properly the economic weight of an activity that equals to 21 billions of meals served every year in EU. Acknowledging the potential impact of exemplarity to promote food education, social inclusion, local economy and to contrast the hidden costs of food waste and patients malnutrition in hospitals, not forgetting that public food services provides food on a daily basis to one european citizen every six. Therefore, the economic lever of public procurement seems appropriate to create suitable market conditions for more sustainable food systems and in the meantime it fosters local authorities’s authoritativeness and efficiency to raise population awareness and promote synergies with civil society in the emergence of more sustainable food production and consumption patterns.

Schiff, R. (2013). The Role of Food Policy Councils in Developing Sustainable Food Systems. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 3(2-3): 206-228>

GIRA Foodservice, (2014), The Contract Catering Market in Europe 2009 – 2014 – 15 counties, for FoodServiceEurope, October 2014

Fooddrink Europe, (2014) Data & Trends of the European Food and Drink Industry 2013-2014.

Lacourt, I., Mariani, M. (2015). City Food Policies. Securing our daily bread in an urbanizing world. Le Château edizioni, Aosta. 176 p. ISBN 978-88-7637-186-8

For more than 10 years of research to promote sustainability in Public Food Service, we have been faced with the difficulty to give a clearcut definition of what is really sustainable and what is not. For this reason we enlarged our vision based on life cycle analysis, considering not only environmental impacts but also social, cultural aspects of food systems… It was also in that vein that we evolved from food service perspective to urban food systems perpective in 2010, with the project Eating City.

We were deeply convinced at that time and still are of the necessity to develop a vision that support specific urban policies to manage urban food systems. But such effort could be unsufficient if it is only considering quantitative urban metabolism of food chains and food flows dimension. Similarly as frustrating attempts to assess sustainability, the complexity of logistics makes tricky sustainable urban food planning and zoning, leading people in endless debates, for instance, on what should be considered as local or not …

Texts such as the Protocol of Lima may renews our frame of thinking and help us to ponderate priorities. When we endorse the necessity “to recognize our shared responsibilities to the planet as a condition for the survival and progress of humankind“, we also agree on the difficulty to act without a global consensus as “the proclamation and pursuit of universal rights are not sufficient to adjust our behaviour, as rights are inoperative when there is no single institution able to guarantee the conditions of their application“.

The eight Principles of Universal Responsibility of the Protocol of Lima straightforwardly lead to the notion of the common good. A  recent review of “THE ECOLOGY OF LAW”  quoted: “We are now faced with choosing either to be friendly with our ecology of with we are not exclusive or choose to confront unbeatable battle of preventing our untimely extinction.” In other words, “we are badly in need of an objective framework in protecting the commons from total extinction “. In such context, “Law should not be seen as a means of violence or power but rather it should solidify the cultural and traditional lives of the people and make them sovereign.”

By recognizing the interdependences between communities and between humankind and Nature, these texts open the door to the discussion over the the notion of the commons, and in our case, about food as commons and not merely as a commodity.

  • Food as commons induces a shared responsibility that entitle communities to take into account immediate and deffered effects on environment and health.
  • Food as commons prescribes that a minority should not decide for the majority on a matter of life itself.
  • Food as commons unites people…

… and when we reach this point of awareness, we get a glimpse on the possibilities that are freed up when adopting the logic of commons.

Of course to consider food as commons and not a commodity requires a first step generosity that may seem uncompatible with current budget restrictions. But to consider food as commons and not commodity gives access to immaterial assets through which food is : “ more than a fuel or the sum of its parts”. And we have now enough successful projects and practices to refer to, that demonstrate how such understanding is a promising entry point to empower people for the change of paradigm. Eating City SC2015 United 4 Food

The Manifest Lima to Paris was presented at the meeting “What responsibility the world needs to face climate change? For a new environmental governance”, which took place in the Andean Community in Lima, Peru, on December 11, 2014, during the People’s Summit, a civil society event parallel to COP20, the UN Climate Summit.

It should be taken as start for a sustained call for support, with local and regional meetings taking place worldwide to discuss this proposal before the COP21 in Paris (29 November – 11 December 2015).

 

Read the Manifest

launch of mensa civica

launch_of_mensa_civica

The establishment of a legal entity will allow Mensa Civica, that has existed already for several years, to implement and participate to national and european projects, in particular to support a responsible food procurement policy in hospitals. Indeed Mensa Civica is networking several Spanish hospitals , whose the hospital “Virgen de las Nieves” in Granada, which is pioneering in Spain in such activity. Furthermore, this spanish network will carry on its work on certification requirements for sustainable public food service.

Maurizio Mariani, president of the franco-italian Consortium Risteco and promoter of the platform Eating City has  presented in the opening session  the challenges raised by the necessity to integrate health and cultural aspects in the development of sustainable food systems in Europe. From that perspective, Public Food Service is a powerful lever for societal action.

To know more

Launch of “Mensa Civica” in Spain

Eating City has participated to the constitutive assembly of Mensa Civica on November 20th in Zaragoza.

eip-agri.eu
eip-agri.eu

 

The scope of the workshop  also was to make optimal use of EU programs and fundings, for instance the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development which is the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy and  the Horizon 2020 EU research programmes, to create smart and sustainable food chains.

In order to stimulate actions, the workshop launched the “AMICI” format, where AMICI stands for Actions for Mobilizing Innovation through Cooperation and Interaction. AMICI are any actions such as forming a group, exchanging further information, investigating an issue deeper, etc…

This multi-actor event brought together around 80 participants from 20 different countries and was prepared in cooperation with representatives from the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) and the Polish Environmental Partnership Foundation.

The report on the EIP-AGRI Workshop Cities and Food : Connecting consumers and producers can be now downloaded here.

13 October 2016, Rome Italy - Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Workshop, FAO headquarters (Iraq Room).

Just prior to the Rome meeting the new Milan Pact Steering Committee cities were announced, with the election of 13 cities. The Steering committee elected Milan to be the president of the Steering Committee which will remain in place for two years.

The Technical Workshop on 13 October began with the presentation of the preliminary results of two surveys to signatory cities. The purposes of the surveys were to see what priorities of cities may shape the development of indicators and the availability of data to measure progress in implementation of the Pact.

A discussion of networks at global, national and local levels ensued, with input from C40, Eurocities, the European regional office of ICLEI, the Italian healthy cities network (Cittasane), francophone African cities, the US Conference of Mayors’ urban food policy directors task force and a Dutch network of cities.

One important discovery is that in existing networks at all scales, working groups including Milan Pact cities and other cities interested in the food policy issues as presented by the Pact have been initiated (e.g. C40, Eurocities, US Conference of Mayors,). In emerging networks Milan Pact cities have been at the forefront and non-signatory cities are included in these organizing efforts as well (e.g. African cities, Dutch network, Healthy Cities network).

The final part of the workshop was a presentation by FAO of technical peer-to-peer cooperation and exchange of practices drawing from past city-to-city exchange in the technical cooperation programme.

On October 14, World Food Day, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Mayors Summit occurred after the official World Food Day ceremony hosted by FAO. The FAO Director General opened the summit referencing links of the Mayors Pact to ending hunger, fighting climate change and to the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Supporting statements were made by Mayor Sala of Milan and representatives of the Italian Food and Agriculture Ministry and the City of Rome. Keynote addresses and a mayors debate brought out the many challenges and opportunities presented by efforts to implement the Pact.

The final part of the summit saw presentation of awards to 8 cities that were scored the highest among 53 submissions from 33 cities. The 6 special mention awards in the categories of the Framework for Action were presented to:

  • Quito for food production
  • Birmingham for sustainable diets and nutrition
  • Riga for food waste
  • Lusaka for social and economic equity
  • Toronto for food supply and distribution
  • Vancouver for governance

The 2 monetary awards for the highest score and challenging environment were presented to:

  • Mexico City for the highest score within a challenging environment
  • Baltimore for the overall highest score

All eight cities made presentations in the form of slides or video that will be shared on the Milan Pact website

The next city for the third annual Mayors Summit will be Valencia Spain in 2017.

Logo ISLE

ISLE is an association which was created in June 2012 to continue with the work carried out during a EU-funded Erasmus Networks project (2010-2013) which involved 39 partners from 30 European countries interested in fostering and transferring innovation concerning the concept of Sustainable development in the teaching of Life Sciences.
Consequently, the ISLE Network members are predominantly International Higher Education Institutions specialized in Agriculture and Food. They have been working on sustainability issues since 2010 and therefore, it was a natural choice to combine efforts on how to profoundly change the current paradigm of Sustainable Food Systems using interdisciplinary teaching, research and students in selected universities on one side and the expert professional experience of Pubic Food Service in Eating City on the other.
And what better way than to use the main link that exists between ISLE and Eating City: the training of future decision–makers in Higher education as a lever of change.
However, knowing that sustainable development can only be achieved through collective decisions, Higher Education must not neglect to work with entrepreneurs and elected representatives in order to make that change.
In fact, as the Coordinator of the ISLE funded project at the time, I had already learnt about the Eating City Platform as early as 2011 during one of the Consortium meeting in Italy and I was intrigued to find out more. Of course, working with and in Higher Education, I was also curious to know how Eating City was able to attract more than 25 young people (all from different backgrounds, but all concerned by better food systems) each year to attend a “Summer Campus” for more than 10 days to share their vision of public food services in cities worldwide!
Being unable to attend the 2015 edition, I was very excited to be able to travel in August this year to their annual venue, the beautiful “Bergerie de Villarceaux”, a sustainable eco-centre situated 60 kms from Paris with its on-site accommodation, restaurant and own organic farm.
Coming from a more academic professional background, it was interesting for me to see the model set-up used by Eating City to exploit cross-fertilization during their summer camp. All the participants and speakers were able to stay on site together for the whole camp which automatically created a wonderful melting pot of ideas and opinions, not to mention friendships. In between collaborative rapid-fire speakers, all addressing a different side of food systems sustainability were “Food Thinkers” and “Food Lab” sessions. These focused on the main points of the presentations and enabled the participants to put all their energy and creativity into contributing to the writing of a final text called the 4th “Villarceaux Declaration”: the final deliverable of the Summer Camp.
I am therefore, in my current role as the President of ISLE, very honoured to be an integral part of this new collaboration and am looking forward to the outcomes of the actions that ISLE and Eating City, together with our respective partners, will carry out in the near future.
Our first objective is to apply the Eating City Methodology to Higher Education and for the younger generations who wish to change the paradigm for sustainable food systems: the organisation of a “decentralised” Eating City Summer School, based on the same methods of the campus but with different selection process, to be held at the University of Teramo, Italy in 2017, is currently underway.

Climate Chance bridges the appointments of Paris  Cop 21 and Marrakech Cop 22. There is a clear necessity to incitate the civil society to become a protagonist of the discussions around climate issues and to create an alliance between all actors working on sustainable Food Systems. In one hand, food should be a pillar on the climate agenda for multiple reasons. On the other hand the climate emergence could allow the various existing initiatives on sustainable food to converge in a unified message.

If climate change is projected to cause lower yields from major crops, to increase price volatility for agricultural commodites and to reduce food quality, it is clear also that dominant food production systems are one cause of climate change (for instance, the amount of energy necessary to cultivate, process, pack and bring the food to European citizens’ tables accounts for 26% of the EU’s final energy consumption in 2013). Therefore food is at the core of climate issues as part of problematic issues and also as part of fundamental solutions to help humanity to survive such threat.

An holistic approach is necessary to tackle efficiently and sustainably such a complex issue in an action plan that integrates mitigation and adaptation measures to reduce the pace & magnitude of the changes in global climate being caused by human activities and the adverse impacts on human well-being resulting from the changes in climate that do occur.

In the absence of national or international efficient climate policy direction, cities are already at the frontline, directly called up to take practical measures to protect an increasing population from adverse climate impacts. In parallel, the idea that cities can be crucial to foster sustainable food systems is also gradually gaining ground. Through a deep cultural change, Cities Food Policies may turn food into a thread to connect all the main competences of the cities related to economic development, education, health, environment, solidarity, culture and leisure, governance, and give consistency to a synergic osmosis between cities and rural territories. In such context, Eating City platfom promotes pragmatic approach to build a model of food lifespan from origin to plate that makes possible to identify all food-related activities and infrastructures in and out the city to design an organization chart that connects all stakeholders and infrastructures, giving them a role and a responsibility to foster resilient/regenerative food systems.

Workshop AGR2 Climate Chance 2016

 

This was the thematic of the workshop : “The role of collective catering in the paradigm shift in food systems” chaired by Maurizio Mariani at the Climate Chance meeting in September 26th, which gathered Robin Gourlay and Giuseppe Mastruzzo, both members of the Steering Committee, Philippe Hersant, founder of Restaurants sans frontières, Guilhem Soutou, working on the Sustainable food and diets Program of Fondation Nina et Daniel Carasso, Amandine Lebreton from Fondation Nicolas Hulot, Rocio Llamas Vacas from Mensa Civica discussed on the role of Public food Service in the needed change of paradigm. Edith Salminem presented the 4th declaration of Villarceaux in a report prepared after the campus.

 

 

During one week, 23 young participants have met, discussed and put their energy and creativity in this text which is the 4th Villarceaux Declaration.

Discover their straightforward recipe to implement the change of paradigm for sustainable food systems.

ECSC group 2016

DONWLOAD THE VILLARCEAUX DECLARATION 2016

We are young professionals from 20 different European countries with different backgrounds and realities. We spent seven days discussing, sharing and confronting arguments and experiences about food. Together, we acknowledge that our current food system is in deep crisis. There is an immediate need for a paradigm shift.

In line with the Eating City platform, the Eating City Summer Campus 2016 acknowledges that the City is at the centre of the problem – and the solution. The Public Food Service presents a transformative opportunity to affect positive change. This is why our united message is addressed to the cities, in particular to the municipal decision-makers. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the fact that each layer of governance has its duties and responsibilities, from the EU to the local level.

The crisis we face today is a complex one. Currently, humans control Nature for their own benefit disregarding its agroecological resilience. We as the human race have forgotten that we are part of a bigger picture and that we are interdependent. This extractive model is no longer viable to ensure the future of the planet and human kind. The dominant claim to keep producing more food to feed the world is only making the problem grow bigger.

Hunger, obesity, non-communicable diseases, waste, processed food, ignorance, exclusion, inequality. This is on the menu. Right to food, food sovereignty, social inclusion, pleasure, flavour, cultural recognition, linking the urban and the rural. This is what we want.

In order to make our food cycle sustainable, we have identified two different and interconnected sets of actions. On the one hand, a new facilitating governance framework for food is necessary. On the other, we have to transform each step of the cycle from production through consumption to waste – and back to the land again.

This is our recipe:
FOSTERING Governance
Problem: There is a lack of political willingness and/or capacity to deal with sustainability issues and with food issues in particular. Consequently, cities’ actions are often fragmented and rely on personal motivation of individual City officials.
Solution: Fostering interdepartmental and cross-sectoral coordination will enable an integrated vision and positive synergies in cities sustainable food policies.
IMPROVING Public Food Service
Problem: Millions of meals are served daily by our cities. Unsustainable Public Food Service has a huge negative
impact on public health and environment.
Solution: Resilient and sustainable Public Food Service offers an immense opportunity to shift consumption patterns and ensure social inclusion.
JOINING Education and Engagement
Problem: Cities do not facilitate community engagement with sustainable food issues or the integration of these challenges into public education.
Solution: Investing in food knowledge and education will stimulate public awareness and encourage participatory food governance.
CONNECTING Food Production to Food Spaces
Problem: Inhabitants are disconnected from their food physically and conceptually. On the other hand, small to medium scale food producers lack the capacity to market access.
Solution: Activating and linking the physical, social and professional space for food will facilitate the shortening of food chains between consumers and producers, and encourage building relationships toward achieving sustainable food practices.
RETHINKING Food Waste
Problem: Food waste is regarded as an inevitable byproduct of an “efficient” food system tilted towards consumer responsibility. So far, the response has been reactive rather than preventive and city action has been fragmented. Responsibilities are not being distributed throughout the chain.
Solution: Waste management should be considered from pre-production through post-consumption. Cities should assess services and infrastructure in order to promote integrated actions.

Bon Appétit!

 

beauty and biodiversity of food

From 16 benefits identified by the International Sustainability Unit, the number rises up to 34.  Whatever you prioritize,you’ll find some benefits worth to advocate for, ranging from food security (and food rights), economic development, environment(al goods and services), health, democracy (governance) and culture.

To read the publication : Food in an Urbanized World: The Role of City Region Food Systems in Resilience and Sustainable Development
To read the reinforced argumentation with 34 propositions

Collaborative knowledge and understanding must be used to improve and reinforce such food common sense argument. Only doing this tirelessly we can break through the “Glass Ceiling” and push food issues into the highest arena of discussions, whether during international climate negotiations, or discussions about international trade agreements such as the on-going Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. (TTIP).

And there is little doubt that this list, a toolkit for policy makers, will keep growing as long as people innovate. Building up a dynamic and complex vision in which rural and urban territories, not only cities supported by surrounding regional food system, get more vital and  symbiotic.

There is no doubt about our current food system’s unsustainability, but in absence of a consensual scenario, world leaders are still tempted to foster economic levers to the detriment of environmental aspects. The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact’ s ratification by more than 133 cities worldwide highlights the will of cities to play a role in new cooperation models: urban centers are now home to half of the global population and they, strategically, bridge local and global interests. A flourishing context of innovative practices related to agriculture diversification, rural tourism and alternative food systems is echoed in the growing number of urban agriculture projects that transform cities in creative social spaces, where new solutions bringing significant improvement to sustainable food systems are designed and experienced (Schiff, 2013).

Such cultural effervescence must not overshadow the traditional competence of public food procurement as a leverage for the shift of paradigm.

18_kitchen copenhagen

Today, 40% of calories are consumed out of home. The total social foodservice market of all Member States in EU-28 was valued €82 billion in 2013 (GIRA Foodservice, 2014). This is low compared to the 1.048 billions of euro of the annual turnover of the whole european food and beverage industry (Fooddrink Europe, 2014), but certainly relevant to give a significant signal. By experiencing that an in depth “cooking from scratch” re-engineering approach is propedeutical to high quality public meals, several pionniers have already paved the way to re-qualify Public Food Service (PFS) (Lacourt and Mariani, 2015). An effort is now needed to broaden the interest and attractiveness of cities for such a competence that is still too often outsourced at the lowest price.

Starting from the definition of a specific activity code to assess properly the economic weight of an activity that equals to 21 billions of meals served every year in EU. Acknowledging the potential impact of exemplarity to promote food education, social inclusion, local economy and to contrast the hidden costs of food waste and patients malnutrition in hospitals, not forgetting that public food services provides food on a daily basis to one european citizen every six. Therefore, the economic lever of public procurement seems appropriate to create suitable market conditions for more sustainable food systems and in the meantime it fosters local authorities’s authoritativeness and efficiency to raise population awareness and promote synergies with civil society in the emergence of more sustainable food production and consumption patterns.

Schiff, R. (2013). The Role of Food Policy Councils in Developing Sustainable Food Systems. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 3(2-3): 206-228>

GIRA Foodservice, (2014), The Contract Catering Market in Europe 2009 – 2014 – 15 counties, for FoodServiceEurope, October 2014

Fooddrink Europe, (2014) Data & Trends of the European Food and Drink Industry 2013-2014.

Lacourt, I., Mariani, M. (2015). City Food Policies. Securing our daily bread in an urbanizing world. Le Château edizioni, Aosta. 176 p. ISBN 978-88-7637-186-8

For more than 10 years of research to promote sustainability in Public Food Service, we have been faced with the difficulty to give a clearcut definition of what is really sustainable and what is not. For this reason we enlarged our vision based on life cycle analysis, considering not only environmental impacts but also social, cultural aspects of food systems… It was also in that vein that we evolved from food service perspective to urban food systems perpective in 2010, with the project Eating City.

We were deeply convinced at that time and still are of the necessity to develop a vision that support specific urban policies to manage urban food systems. But such effort could be unsufficient if it is only considering quantitative urban metabolism of food chains and food flows dimension. Similarly as frustrating attempts to assess sustainability, the complexity of logistics makes tricky sustainable urban food planning and zoning, leading people in endless debates, for instance, on what should be considered as local or not …

Texts such as the Protocol of Lima may renews our frame of thinking and help us to ponderate priorities. When we endorse the necessity “to recognize our shared responsibilities to the planet as a condition for the survival and progress of humankind“, we also agree on the difficulty to act without a global consensus as “the proclamation and pursuit of universal rights are not sufficient to adjust our behaviour, as rights are inoperative when there is no single institution able to guarantee the conditions of their application“.

The eight Principles of Universal Responsibility of the Protocol of Lima straightforwardly lead to the notion of the common good. A  recent review of “THE ECOLOGY OF LAW”  quoted: “We are now faced with choosing either to be friendly with our ecology of with we are not exclusive or choose to confront unbeatable battle of preventing our untimely extinction.” In other words, “we are badly in need of an objective framework in protecting the commons from total extinction “. In such context, “Law should not be seen as a means of violence or power but rather it should solidify the cultural and traditional lives of the people and make them sovereign.”

By recognizing the interdependences between communities and between humankind and Nature, these texts open the door to the discussion over the the notion of the commons, and in our case, about food as commons and not merely as a commodity.

  • Food as commons induces a shared responsibility that entitle communities to take into account immediate and deffered effects on environment and health.
  • Food as commons prescribes that a minority should not decide for the majority on a matter of life itself.
  • Food as commons unites people…

… and when we reach this point of awareness, we get a glimpse on the possibilities that are freed up when adopting the logic of commons.

Of course to consider food as commons and not a commodity requires a first step generosity that may seem uncompatible with current budget restrictions. But to consider food as commons and not commodity gives access to immaterial assets through which food is : “ more than a fuel or the sum of its parts”. And we have now enough successful projects and practices to refer to, that demonstrate how such understanding is a promising entry point to empower people for the change of paradigm. Eating City SC2015 United 4 Food

The Manifest Lima to Paris was presented at the meeting “What responsibility the world needs to face climate change? For a new environmental governance”, which took place in the Andean Community in Lima, Peru, on December 11, 2014, during the People’s Summit, a civil society event parallel to COP20, the UN Climate Summit.

It should be taken as start for a sustained call for support, with local and regional meetings taking place worldwide to discuss this proposal before the COP21 in Paris (29 November – 11 December 2015).

 

Read the Manifest

launch of mensa civica

launch_of_mensa_civica

The establishment of a legal entity will allow Mensa Civica, that has existed already for several years, to implement and participate to national and european projects, in particular to support a responsible food procurement policy in hospitals. Indeed Mensa Civica is networking several Spanish hospitals , whose the hospital “Virgen de las Nieves” in Granada, which is pioneering in Spain in such activity. Furthermore, this spanish network will carry on its work on certification requirements for sustainable public food service.

Maurizio Mariani, president of the franco-italian Consortium Risteco and promoter of the platform Eating City has  presented in the opening session  the challenges raised by the necessity to integrate health and cultural aspects in the development of sustainable food systems in Europe. From that perspective, Public Food Service is a powerful lever for societal action.

To know more

Launch of “Mensa Civica” in Spain

Eating City has participated to the constitutive assembly of Mensa Civica on November 20th in Zaragoza.

eip-agri.eu
eip-agri.eu

 

The scope of the workshop  also was to make optimal use of EU programs and fundings, for instance the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development which is the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy and  the Horizon 2020 EU research programmes, to create smart and sustainable food chains.

In order to stimulate actions, the workshop launched the “AMICI” format, where AMICI stands for Actions for Mobilizing Innovation through Cooperation and Interaction. AMICI are any actions such as forming a group, exchanging further information, investigating an issue deeper, etc…

This multi-actor event brought together around 80 participants from 20 different countries and was prepared in cooperation with representatives from the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) and the Polish Environmental Partnership Foundation.

The report on the EIP-AGRI Workshop Cities and Food : Connecting consumers and producers can be now downloaded here.

13 October 2016, Rome Italy - Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Workshop, FAO headquarters (Iraq Room).

Just prior to the Rome meeting the new Milan Pact Steering Committee cities were announced, with the election of 13 cities. The Steering committee elected Milan to be the president of the Steering Committee which will remain in place for two years.

The Technical Workshop on 13 October began with the presentation of the preliminary results of two surveys to signatory cities. The purposes of the surveys were to see what priorities of cities may shape the development of indicators and the availability of data to measure progress in implementation of the Pact.

A discussion of networks at global, national and local levels ensued, with input from C40, Eurocities, the European regional office of ICLEI, the Italian healthy cities network (Cittasane), francophone African cities, the US Conference of Mayors’ urban food policy directors task force and a Dutch network of cities.

One important discovery is that in existing networks at all scales, working groups including Milan Pact cities and other cities interested in the food policy issues as presented by the Pact have been initiated (e.g. C40, Eurocities, US Conference of Mayors,). In emerging networks Milan Pact cities have been at the forefront and non-signatory cities are included in these organizing efforts as well (e.g. African cities, Dutch network, Healthy Cities network).

The final part of the workshop was a presentation by FAO of technical peer-to-peer cooperation and exchange of practices drawing from past city-to-city exchange in the technical cooperation programme.

On October 14, World Food Day, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Mayors Summit occurred after the official World Food Day ceremony hosted by FAO. The FAO Director General opened the summit referencing links of the Mayors Pact to ending hunger, fighting climate change and to the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Supporting statements were made by Mayor Sala of Milan and representatives of the Italian Food and Agriculture Ministry and the City of Rome. Keynote addresses and a mayors debate brought out the many challenges and opportunities presented by efforts to implement the Pact.

The final part of the summit saw presentation of awards to 8 cities that were scored the highest among 53 submissions from 33 cities. The 6 special mention awards in the categories of the Framework for Action were presented to:

  • Quito for food production
  • Birmingham for sustainable diets and nutrition
  • Riga for food waste
  • Lusaka for social and economic equity
  • Toronto for food supply and distribution
  • Vancouver for governance

The 2 monetary awards for the highest score and challenging environment were presented to:

  • Mexico City for the highest score within a challenging environment
  • Baltimore for the overall highest score

All eight cities made presentations in the form of slides or video that will be shared on the Milan Pact website

The next city for the third annual Mayors Summit will be Valencia Spain in 2017.

Logo ISLE

ISLE is an association which was created in June 2012 to continue with the work carried out during a EU-funded Erasmus Networks project (2010-2013) which involved 39 partners from 30 European countries interested in fostering and transferring innovation concerning the concept of Sustainable development in the teaching of Life Sciences.
Consequently, the ISLE Network members are predominantly International Higher Education Institutions specialized in Agriculture and Food. They have been working on sustainability issues since 2010 and therefore, it was a natural choice to combine efforts on how to profoundly change the current paradigm of Sustainable Food Systems using interdisciplinary teaching, research and students in selected universities on one side and the expert professional experience of Pubic Food Service in Eating City on the other.
And what better way than to use the main link that exists between ISLE and Eating City: the training of future decision–makers in Higher education as a lever of change.
However, knowing that sustainable development can only be achieved through collective decisions, Higher Education must not neglect to work with entrepreneurs and elected representatives in order to make that change.
In fact, as the Coordinator of the ISLE funded project at the time, I had already learnt about the Eating City Platform as early as 2011 during one of the Consortium meeting in Italy and I was intrigued to find out more. Of course, working with and in Higher Education, I was also curious to know how Eating City was able to attract more than 25 young people (all from different backgrounds, but all concerned by better food systems) each year to attend a “Summer Campus” for more than 10 days to share their vision of public food services in cities worldwide!
Being unable to attend the 2015 edition, I was very excited to be able to travel in August this year to their annual venue, the beautiful “Bergerie de Villarceaux”, a sustainable eco-centre situated 60 kms from Paris with its on-site accommodation, restaurant and own organic farm.
Coming from a more academic professional background, it was interesting for me to see the model set-up used by Eating City to exploit cross-fertilization during their summer camp. All the participants and speakers were able to stay on site together for the whole camp which automatically created a wonderful melting pot of ideas and opinions, not to mention friendships. In between collaborative rapid-fire speakers, all addressing a different side of food systems sustainability were “Food Thinkers” and “Food Lab” sessions. These focused on the main points of the presentations and enabled the participants to put all their energy and creativity into contributing to the writing of a final text called the 4th “Villarceaux Declaration”: the final deliverable of the Summer Camp.
I am therefore, in my current role as the President of ISLE, very honoured to be an integral part of this new collaboration and am looking forward to the outcomes of the actions that ISLE and Eating City, together with our respective partners, will carry out in the near future.
Our first objective is to apply the Eating City Methodology to Higher Education and for the younger generations who wish to change the paradigm for sustainable food systems: the organisation of a “decentralised” Eating City Summer School, based on the same methods of the campus but with different selection process, to be held at the University of Teramo, Italy in 2017, is currently underway.

Climate Chance bridges the appointments of Paris  Cop 21 and Marrakech Cop 22. There is a clear necessity to incitate the civil society to become a protagonist of the discussions around climate issues and to create an alliance between all actors working on sustainable Food Systems. In one hand, food should be a pillar on the climate agenda for multiple reasons. On the other hand the climate emergence could allow the various existing initiatives on sustainable food to converge in a unified message.

If climate change is projected to cause lower yields from major crops, to increase price volatility for agricultural commodites and to reduce food quality, it is clear also that dominant food production systems are one cause of climate change (for instance, the amount of energy necessary to cultivate, process, pack and bring the food to European citizens’ tables accounts for 26% of the EU’s final energy consumption in 2013). Therefore food is at the core of climate issues as part of problematic issues and also as part of fundamental solutions to help humanity to survive such threat.

An holistic approach is necessary to tackle efficiently and sustainably such a complex issue in an action plan that integrates mitigation and adaptation measures to reduce the pace & magnitude of the changes in global climate being caused by human activities and the adverse impacts on human well-being resulting from the changes in climate that do occur.

In the absence of national or international efficient climate policy direction, cities are already at the frontline, directly called up to take practical measures to protect an increasing population from adverse climate impacts. In parallel, the idea that cities can be crucial to foster sustainable food systems is also gradually gaining ground. Through a deep cultural change, Cities Food Policies may turn food into a thread to connect all the main competences of the cities related to economic development, education, health, environment, solidarity, culture and leisure, governance, and give consistency to a synergic osmosis between cities and rural territories. In such context, Eating City platfom promotes pragmatic approach to build a model of food lifespan from origin to plate that makes possible to identify all food-related activities and infrastructures in and out the city to design an organization chart that connects all stakeholders and infrastructures, giving them a role and a responsibility to foster resilient/regenerative food systems.

Workshop AGR2 Climate Chance 2016

 

This was the thematic of the workshop : “The role of collective catering in the paradigm shift in food systems” chaired by Maurizio Mariani at the Climate Chance meeting in September 26th, which gathered Robin Gourlay and Giuseppe Mastruzzo, both members of the Steering Committee, Philippe Hersant, founder of Restaurants sans frontières, Guilhem Soutou, working on the Sustainable food and diets Program of Fondation Nina et Daniel Carasso, Amandine Lebreton from Fondation Nicolas Hulot, Rocio Llamas Vacas from Mensa Civica discussed on the role of Public food Service in the needed change of paradigm. Edith Salminem presented the 4th declaration of Villarceaux in a report prepared after the campus.

 

 

During one week, 23 young participants have met, discussed and put their energy and creativity in this text which is the 4th Villarceaux Declaration.

Discover their straightforward recipe to implement the change of paradigm for sustainable food systems.

ECSC group 2016

DONWLOAD THE VILLARCEAUX DECLARATION 2016

We are young professionals from 20 different European countries with different backgrounds and realities. We spent seven days discussing, sharing and confronting arguments and experiences about food. Together, we acknowledge that our current food system is in deep crisis. There is an immediate need for a paradigm shift.

In line with the Eating City platform, the Eating City Summer Campus 2016 acknowledges that the City is at the centre of the problem – and the solution. The Public Food Service presents a transformative opportunity to affect positive change. This is why our united message is addressed to the cities, in particular to the municipal decision-makers. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the fact that each layer of governance has its duties and responsibilities, from the EU to the local level.

The crisis we face today is a complex one. Currently, humans control Nature for their own benefit disregarding its agroecological resilience. We as the human race have forgotten that we are part of a bigger picture and that we are interdependent. This extractive model is no longer viable to ensure the future of the planet and human kind. The dominant claim to keep producing more food to feed the world is only making the problem grow bigger.

Hunger, obesity, non-communicable diseases, waste, processed food, ignorance, exclusion, inequality. This is on the menu. Right to food, food sovereignty, social inclusion, pleasure, flavour, cultural recognition, linking the urban and the rural. This is what we want.

In order to make our food cycle sustainable, we have identified two different and interconnected sets of actions. On the one hand, a new facilitating governance framework for food is necessary. On the other, we have to transform each step of the cycle from production through consumption to waste – and back to the land again.

This is our recipe:
FOSTERING Governance
Problem: There is a lack of political willingness and/or capacity to deal with sustainability issues and with food issues in particular. Consequently, cities’ actions are often fragmented and rely on personal motivation of individual City officials.
Solution: Fostering interdepartmental and cross-sectoral coordination will enable an integrated vision and positive synergies in cities sustainable food policies.
IMPROVING Public Food Service
Problem: Millions of meals are served daily by our cities. Unsustainable Public Food Service has a huge negative
impact on public health and environment.
Solution: Resilient and sustainable Public Food Service offers an immense opportunity to shift consumption patterns and ensure social inclusion.
JOINING Education and Engagement
Problem: Cities do not facilitate community engagement with sustainable food issues or the integration of these challenges into public education.
Solution: Investing in food knowledge and education will stimulate public awareness and encourage participatory food governance.
CONNECTING Food Production to Food Spaces
Problem: Inhabitants are disconnected from their food physically and conceptually. On the other hand, small to medium scale food producers lack the capacity to market access.
Solution: Activating and linking the physical, social and professional space for food will facilitate the shortening of food chains between consumers and producers, and encourage building relationships toward achieving sustainable food practices.
RETHINKING Food Waste
Problem: Food waste is regarded as an inevitable byproduct of an “efficient” food system tilted towards consumer responsibility. So far, the response has been reactive rather than preventive and city action has been fragmented. Responsibilities are not being distributed throughout the chain.
Solution: Waste management should be considered from pre-production through post-consumption. Cities should assess services and infrastructure in order to promote integrated actions.

Bon Appétit!

 

beauty and biodiversity of food

From 16 benefits identified by the International Sustainability Unit, the number rises up to 34.  Whatever you prioritize,you’ll find some benefits worth to advocate for, ranging from food security (and food rights), economic development, environment(al goods and services), health, democracy (governance) and culture.

To read the publication : Food in an Urbanized World: The Role of City Region Food Systems in Resilience and Sustainable Development
To read the reinforced argumentation with 34 propositions

Collaborative knowledge and understanding must be used to improve and reinforce such food common sense argument. Only doing this tirelessly we can break through the “Glass Ceiling” and push food issues into the highest arena of discussions, whether during international climate negotiations, or discussions about international trade agreements such as the on-going Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. (TTIP).

And there is little doubt that this list, a toolkit for policy makers, will keep growing as long as people innovate. Building up a dynamic and complex vision in which rural and urban territories, not only cities supported by surrounding regional food system, get more vital and  symbiotic.

There is no doubt about our current food system’s unsustainability, but in absence of a consensual scenario, world leaders are still tempted to foster economic levers to the detriment of environmental aspects. The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact’ s ratification by more than 133 cities worldwide highlights the will of cities to play a role in new cooperation models: urban centers are now home to half of the global population and they, strategically, bridge local and global interests. A flourishing context of innovative practices related to agriculture diversification, rural tourism and alternative food systems is echoed in the growing number of urban agriculture projects that transform cities in creative social spaces, where new solutions bringing significant improvement to sustainable food systems are designed and experienced (Schiff, 2013).

Such cultural effervescence must not overshadow the traditional competence of public food procurement as a leverage for the shift of paradigm.

18_kitchen copenhagen

Today, 40% of calories are consumed out of home. The total social foodservice market of all Member States in EU-28 was valued €82 billion in 2013 (GIRA Foodservice, 2014). This is low compared to the 1.048 billions of euro of the annual turnover of the whole european food and beverage industry (Fooddrink Europe, 2014), but certainly relevant to give a significant signal. By experiencing that an in depth “cooking from scratch” re-engineering approach is propedeutical to high quality public meals, several pionniers have already paved the way to re-qualify Public Food Service (PFS) (Lacourt and Mariani, 2015). An effort is now needed to broaden the interest and attractiveness of cities for such a competence that is still too often outsourced at the lowest price.

Starting from the definition of a specific activity code to assess properly the economic weight of an activity that equals to 21 billions of meals served every year in EU. Acknowledging the potential impact of exemplarity to promote food education, social inclusion, local economy and to contrast the hidden costs of food waste and patients malnutrition in hospitals, not forgetting that public food services provides food on a daily basis to one european citizen every six. Therefore, the economic lever of public procurement seems appropriate to create suitable market conditions for more sustainable food systems and in the meantime it fosters local authorities’s authoritativeness and efficiency to raise population awareness and promote synergies with civil society in the emergence of more sustainable food production and consumption patterns.

Schiff, R. (2013). The Role of Food Policy Councils in Developing Sustainable Food Systems. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 3(2-3): 206-228>

GIRA Foodservice, (2014), The Contract Catering Market in Europe 2009 – 2014 – 15 counties, for FoodServiceEurope, October 2014

Fooddrink Europe, (2014) Data & Trends of the European Food and Drink Industry 2013-2014.

Lacourt, I., Mariani, M. (2015). City Food Policies. Securing our daily bread in an urbanizing world. Le Château edizioni, Aosta. 176 p. ISBN 978-88-7637-186-8

For more than 10 years of research to promote sustainability in Public Food Service, we have been faced with the difficulty to give a clearcut definition of what is really sustainable and what is not. For this reason we enlarged our vision based on life cycle analysis, considering not only environmental impacts but also social, cultural aspects of food systems… It was also in that vein that we evolved from food service perspective to urban food systems perpective in 2010, with the project Eating City.

We were deeply convinced at that time and still are of the necessity to develop a vision that support specific urban policies to manage urban food systems. But such effort could be unsufficient if it is only considering quantitative urban metabolism of food chains and food flows dimension. Similarly as frustrating attempts to assess sustainability, the complexity of logistics makes tricky sustainable urban food planning and zoning, leading people in endless debates, for instance, on what should be considered as local or not …

Texts such as the Protocol of Lima may renews our frame of thinking and help us to ponderate priorities. When we endorse the necessity “to recognize our shared responsibilities to the planet as a condition for the survival and progress of humankind“, we also agree on the difficulty to act without a global consensus as “the proclamation and pursuit of universal rights are not sufficient to adjust our behaviour, as rights are inoperative when there is no single institution able to guarantee the conditions of their application“.

The eight Principles of Universal Responsibility of the Protocol of Lima straightforwardly lead to the notion of the common good. A  recent review of “THE ECOLOGY OF LAW”  quoted: “We are now faced with choosing either to be friendly with our ecology of with we are not exclusive or choose to confront unbeatable battle of preventing our untimely extinction.” In other words, “we are badly in need of an objective framework in protecting the commons from total extinction “. In such context, “Law should not be seen as a means of violence or power but rather it should solidify the cultural and traditional lives of the people and make them sovereign.”

By recognizing the interdependences between communities and between humankind and Nature, these texts open the door to the discussion over the the notion of the commons, and in our case, about food as commons and not merely as a commodity.

  • Food as commons induces a shared responsibility that entitle communities to take into account immediate and deffered effects on environment and health.
  • Food as commons prescribes that a minority should not decide for the majority on a matter of life itself.
  • Food as commons unites people…

… and when we reach this point of awareness, we get a glimpse on the possibilities that are freed up when adopting the logic of commons.

Of course to consider food as commons and not a commodity requires a first step generosity that may seem uncompatible with current budget restrictions. But to consider food as commons and not commodity gives access to immaterial assets through which food is : “ more than a fuel or the sum of its parts”. And we have now enough successful projects and practices to refer to, that demonstrate how such understanding is a promising entry point to empower people for the change of paradigm. Eating City SC2015 United 4 Food

The Manifest Lima to Paris was presented at the meeting “What responsibility the world needs to face climate change? For a new environmental governance”, which took place in the Andean Community in Lima, Peru, on December 11, 2014, during the People’s Summit, a civil society event parallel to COP20, the UN Climate Summit.

It should be taken as start for a sustained call for support, with local and regional meetings taking place worldwide to discuss this proposal before the COP21 in Paris (29 November – 11 December 2015).

 

Read the Manifest

launch of mensa civica

launch_of_mensa_civica

The establishment of a legal entity will allow Mensa Civica, that has existed already for several years, to implement and participate to national and european projects, in particular to support a responsible food procurement policy in hospitals. Indeed Mensa Civica is networking several Spanish hospitals , whose the hospital “Virgen de las Nieves” in Granada, which is pioneering in Spain in such activity. Furthermore, this spanish network will carry on its work on certification requirements for sustainable public food service.

Maurizio Mariani, president of the franco-italian Consortium Risteco and promoter of the platform Eating City has  presented in the opening session  the challenges raised by the necessity to integrate health and cultural aspects in the development of sustainable food systems in Europe. From that perspective, Public Food Service is a powerful lever for societal action.

To know more

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