Sustainable Food

The project “New plants for Barcelona’s food system” promotes the use of edible plants that typically grow wild in the horticultural sector. This means placing value on and therefore giving a commercial outlet to plants that are often considered to be weeds. The project specifically focuses on two very common species: The Bladder Campion and the Common Purslane. For each of these plants a crop trial will be carried out on a professional agricultural holding, albeit using two very different approaches.

In the case of the Bladder Campion, crops will be sewn and grown on an exclusive plot of land, as would be the case with any other crop, like spinach. In contrast, the Common Purslane will be grown as a secondary crop alongside tomatoes, where a combination of the two species will be trialled. Both of these approaches are interesting in that they will provide information on the potential to incorporate these plants into the production system and give it added value.

The project is promoted by Eixarcolant and financed by Barcelona City Council through grants linked to the Climate Plan 2023.

Testing the viability of the new product

The production is mainly being carried out by Ortiga, an agricultural production project based in Can Montmany (Collserola). In order to generate a real impact, the project also includes the formation of distribution and sales channels to ensure the fresh produce reaches consumers. Specifically, for this phase of the project Barcelona’s school dinner consumers have been chosen as the main target market, and the project is working in partnership with Ecocentral and the Catalan Agro-Ecological School Dinners Network.

Along with the production and distribution of the fresh produce, a number of promotional activities are carried out aimed at improving key stakeholder knowledge of urban food in terms of the value and potential of edible wild plants.

The initiative is designed to be a strategy for diversifying agricultural enterprises and also our diet. To make this feasible and replicable all over, a functioning production and distribution model first needs to be tested and defined. So, as part of the project, the agronomic and economic viability of growing bladder campion and common purslane crops will be evaluated, along with the receptiveness of students and other consumers to these plants.

A strategy for adapting to climate change

Growing all around us are many species of edible wild plants which are rarely consumed nowadays. Due to their high nutritional content and sensory appeal, they have great potential as a food resource.

In many cases, these plants have traditionally be used in cooking but knowledge about how to identify them, harvest them and cook them tend to have been lost or forgotten in recent generations. They are also species that are highly adapted to the local environment, given that if conditions are favourable, they grow and thrive spontaneously. Therefore, incorporating edible wild plants into our food system could be a strategy for adapting to climate change.

The importance of incorporating edible wild species into our diet is backed up by reports from the FAO, which claims that they are essential for guaranteeing food security, food sovereignty and sustainable development in rural environments.

New dishes on school menus

The first crops are currently being grown and it is expected that in May this year, for the first time, schools will be serving up a dish featuring bladder campion: bladder campion omelette, chickpea stew with bladder campion, pasta with bladder campion pesto, and so on.

The common purslane crops are just being planted now and it is hoped that the first batches of fresh produce will be delivered to school kitchens before the end of the school year, so they can be used in recipes like salads and common purslane lasagne.