On 22-24 June Expo Floriade 2022 that took place in Almere, hosted the partners of the NextAgri Urbact project, the Food Trails Horizon 2020 project, and of the Eurocities and Milan Urban Food Policy Pact network, to talk about food policy and food system innovation.
The NextAgri partner took the chance to meet in Almere during the Expo and realize the 2nd physical Transnational meeting, that was postponed due to the Covid emergency. This has been a great opportunity to share the state of the art of the project among city partners but also to participate in the bigger events promoted by the other projects networks.
Indeed, some of the events planned by the organizers (City of Almere, Food Trails and Milan Urban Food Policy Pact) were related to food policies and some specific issues that the NextAgri project is covering: rural and urban linkages, periurban agriculture, food hub innovation. Over 80 participants from cities all over Europe discussed their experiences and good practices on food transition in order to accelerate the transformation of urban food systems.
In this context the first two days the Next Agri partners met in the Volks canteen in Almere city center and worked on the project and also had the chance to visit local experiences of urban agriculture such as: Ostenwold and explore the project of the supermarket of the future. The added value of this meeting was the participation to the main conference promoted by the other network, that enable the Next Agri partner to increase their knowledge on food policy practices.
What were the issues addressed in the Floriade food program and the objectives of the meetings?
The transformative potential of food through the food policies was at the heart of the conversation of the conference. How to innovate these systems through several kinds of actions, like raising public awareness and acting on urban planning. Relating to these topics was stressed the importance of the collaboration between local and national level and the necessity of a strong multilevel governance.
Thanks to the visit to the Expo Floriade 2022 it was possible to participate in several side events connected to food policies action, monitoring framework and implementation techniques. During the conference “The Table is Set” a specific focus was the role and the experiences of cities to face food inequality. This event was focused on food policy creation and priorities and therefore the various cases that have been presented: Almere, Birmingham, Ghent and Milan, have been very inspiring for the NextAgri Partners that do not have a food policy at city level but that are starting to face this issue at local level.
The potential created by the participation to the Floriade Expo 2022 meeting, has been exploited by the NextAgri partners and creates the opportunity to strengthen the network among cities, tio share also with other Urbact city experiences that participated to this important european food event and to enrich the knowledge of the NextAgri city partners
Here the link to a short video of the conference
