Every year, students of the Innovations & Policies for Sustainable Food (IPAD) master’s degree – hosted by the Agro Montpellier Institute and CIRAD – organize a Day to present their work. As part of their training, students meet innovative projects and stakeholders in their ecosystem in order to investigate the questions, issues and related policies.
This approach is intended to be optimistic, to show that there are alternative initiatives to the unsustainability of industrialized food systems. These projects are at the crossroads between critical analysis, documentary research and aim for restitution formats far removed from those of more institutional work (pitch).
The rebroadcast is available online here and the proceedings (3 pages / project) of JIPAD are to be published soon.
This year, the case studies explore 3 axes:
- structure more sustainable, more local, more circular food chains;
- question the sustainability – social, environmental, economic – of food systems;
- nourish and feed oneself – towards new food solidarity.
Some of the main outputs of that day could be summarized in these points :
- It is food that will drive agriculture and not the other way around.
- We have plans but we will not achieve them, we need a systemic, sectoral approach… and of course financing. We often talk about the CAP which costs 6 billion, but what about other sectors of public spending? What about the public health cost of chronic cardiovascular diseases associated with an unhealthy diet?
- Tomorrow’s challenges: work on fake news, keywords, training competent journalists in agronomy. Maybe provide a training on sustainable food systems for journalists?
- Eventhough our desirable horizon remains an oil-agriculture in 28 years, public policies take a very long time to change an entire system.
- There is a need to highlight stories, imaginations, “success stories”
This was of great help for CITAG in its WP3 and WP4 local advocacy. CITAG can now highlight the role of public policies in the adoption of agriculture that responds to food issues and faces climate change:
- Investors, guides, facilitators, co-leaders of the project: clarify or facilitate the mastery of regulatory aspects, the sizing of the tool, the constitution of a motivated and stable group
- Breaking down administrative or regulatory barriers;
- Finance innovations on social issues without passing the additional cost or risk inherent in innovative practices onto the producer or the consumer – through experimentation, testing, validation of models or dissemination of data;
- Support the change in practices by bringing out different sectors: structuring and making outlets visible through regional coordination or public purchasing (collective catering);
In terms of agricultural land preservation and usage, CITAG got some inputs on the position to have if possible in the Marseille ecosystem:
- Intermediary in the negotiation on access to land (reassuring for all parties)
- Portage of land, by contracting a long-term rental then organizing sub-rentals to farmers.
- Renewal of public policies
- Coordination of actors
Those exchanges and networking were crucial for CITAG in order to enhance its advocacy discourse and efficiency.