How to bring innovation in City/Region Food Systems?

Abstract

The International Workshop & How to bring innovation in City/Region Food Systems” has been organized within the framework of the EU- H2020 project Food Systems in European Cities (FoodE, www.foode.eu), in collaboration with the 11th SPPS PhD Student Conference (https://sppsphd2020.fi/), held in Turku (Finland) and online in September 2-4, 2020. In recent years, our planet has been experiencing a convergence of natural and man-made crises that are unprecedented in our lifetime. We are facing the consequences of accelerating and rapid urbanization, the scarcity of natural resources and their mismanagement and the impact of major errors in our responses to disasters. Recent pandemic outbreak has posed at serious risk food access and security, especially in larger cities, enabling the environment for a constructive debate on how to rethink our food systems. While cities cover less than 2 percent of the Earth’s surface, they consume 78 percent of world energy and release over 60 percent of all carbon dioxide and a significant amount of other greenhouse gases. Among EU citizens, major environmental impact are associated with food systems, with all the related economic and social consequences. This workshop represents a place where young minds and early stage researchers are called to discuss about innovation and sustainability of City/Region Food Systems (CRFS), ranging from where food is produced, to where it is processed and distributed. Talks range among all aspects of CRFS, including innovative plant production systems, sustainability assessment, short food chain, food waste management, urban agriculture, business models and the water-food-energy nexus within cities. Speakers were asked to resume their innovative ideas and PhD research projects in three minutes, fulfilling the key questions: - What is the innovation of your research project? - How can this innovation contribute to sustainability of City/Region Food Systems? Within 1 h 30’, the workshop brought together 15 contributions (combining two plenary lectures and 13 short presentations from PhD candidates) from 9 World countries. All participants have got the opportunity to follow excellent presentations on topics that sometimes were far from their field of expertise, but though so much integrated and relevant to it.