Sustainable Food

On Tuesday, February 25, the Joan Oliver “Pere Quart” Civic Centre welcomed a session on inter-cooperation, promoted by the Agròpolis space, in which representatives of the City Council, universities and social and economic entities of the city took part.

During the first part of the morning, in an “elevator pitch” format, with short and dynamic interventions, up to thirty research projects from fifteen different research groups were presented. As well as this, various lines of funding boosted by the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat de Catalunya to promote research in key areas such as agroecology, sustainable food and urban agriculture were put forward.

Attendees were able to learn about the work of research groups from the University of Barcelona – FARO (Observatory for Food Research and Action); the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB); Sostenipra; the Sustainability Area of the Metròpoli Institute; the CSIC – Institute of Environmental Diagnosis and Water Studies; the Blanquerna-URL Faculty of Health Sciences; CREAF – Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications; the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) – Group for the study and promotion of sustainable food; IrsiCaixa’s Living Lab of Health; Arran de Terra; TURBA Lab; NUTRALiSS of the UOC; and iMARES of the ICM-CSIC.

More collaboration and two-way information transfer

According to Robert Martínez Varderi, representative of the Agròpolis technical secretariat, the aim of the meeting was “to promote the work being done by these research groups and to explore ways of linking up with the economic and social fabric of the city; but also to make it easier for this fabric to transmit its knowledge needs to the field of research”.

After the presentations, in an informal space during a break for breakfast, the attendees were able to talk in depth about those projects that interested them the most, and with which they saw links and possibilities for collaboration.

During the last part of the day, the participants were divided into four thematic groups as part of a group dynamic to identify points in common between the projects, detect gaps in the research and explore ways to transfer the research to the social and economic fabric.

More resources and less food waste

In the panel discussion on food environments, organisations highlighted the difficulty of locating funding for small initiatives, as well as the challenges of networking in vulnerable environments.

The need to incentivise the return to entities involved in research projects was also discussed, and the urgency of reducing food waste through a systemic vision that integrates the entire value chain was also underlined.

Research and best practices in urban gardening

Regarding urban agriculture, the importance of involving the participants of the social gardens was highlighted, as a way to reinforce their active role. The need to protect spaces with urban biodiversity was also pointed out and the unsustainable practices that still exist in some private gardens were discussed. The organisations called for more social research to encourage the exchange of seeds and local varieties.

Producer participation, the challenge in agroecology

In the field of agroecology, the benefits of collaborative research with the people who produce and distribute food were emphasised. However, the complicated nature of this was brought to light, because their participation remains limited due to lack of resources and funding, as well as bureaucratic barriers.

Non-research organisations expressed their interest in strengthening links with universities to disseminate projects, and proposed that universities could act as funding centres for projects, as well as giving more consideration to organisations in the design and presentation of projects.

The food and health group highlighted the lack of nutrition training in the health sector and the need for more research on fish consumption and sustainability, an area that has been little explored in food research. It was also suggested that nutritional analysis tools should be adapted to primary care centres and hospitals.

Finally, participants highlighted the potential of collaboration between research centres and institutions to generate applied research and support community initiatives. The creation of agreements with students to strengthen local projects was therefore proposed.