My research question was “Why did the project “food for the future” choose the products: Andean crops, pulses and seaweed. Are these sustainable?”.
The project itself
- Unique project
- Feed growing global population -> sustainable way
- Three sustainable food chains products from the South
- low environmental impact
- offer farmers producing products new opportunitiesMore...
The project that I have chosen is the SWITCH-Asia programme from fairtrade. The SWITCH-Asia Grants Programme funds pilot projects helping companies to adopt cleaner technologies and more sustainable industrial practices, as well as helping consumers to act more responsibly in their daily choices and lifestyles. Since 2007, this EU programme has funded projects across a wide range of sectors (energy efficiency in industrial plants and houses, agri-food and fishing sectors, textiles and leather, tourism, logistics and freight) implemented by over 500 Asian and European partners, about 100 private sector associates, indirectly benefitting up to 80.000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
By supporting the sharing of knowledge and developing local capacity for responsible business practices, SWITCH-Asia is a means for local companies to more easily access the supply chains of multinational companies which seek to establish green and fair conducts within their value-chains. The replication and scaling-up effect of project results together with access to finance and public-private investments for green products, services and technologies will be key elements within the programme in the next years in order to have a greater impact in the region. The evidence provided by projects is meant to feed into policy and regulatory discussions with national governments in their transition towards a low-carbon and resource-efficient economy through the improvement of national strategies and action plans with regard to sustainable production and consumption practices.
130 projects funded in the region over a period of 14 years of which 22 new ones active as of 2020 and implemented by Asian, Central Asian and European organisations. In line with the new ambitions of the EU in terms of green transition, the Grant Scheme of the programme will focus in particular (but not exclusively) on the external dimension of the EU Green Dealand of its focus areas, such as sustainable food-systems and circular economy.
I've made my own top 10 on how you can make your meal more sustainable. Now, I'm going to apply this on my pasta.
1. This is easy, just look on your packages if it comes from your country or go buy product by your local farmer (if there is one ofcourse).
2. Go buy your supplies in your local fair trade shop, every city has one these days.
3. "Food's true cost" is actually almost the same as buying fair trade.
4. Try new food's, new product -> your local product, you probably have never bought products at the farm.
5. Of course is wasting less hard, but just insert a "leftovers day".
6. This will probably be hard at first, you'll have to do research on the certified stadards and then figure out which are credible.
7. If you buy at your local farm, or if you have your own little garden, you have no chose but seasonal products -> https://www.wikihow.com/Season-Pasta
8. Your own little garden, it takes time and you have to learn about it, but this "corona-season" is perfect to start your own little garden.
9. You might think this is stupid, but if you ask for the "ugly" fruits and veggies, there will be less waste in the shops.
10. This one is easy, just bring your own pouches for fruit and veggies and buy full crops.
'Food lab Brugge' is a project that started in 2015, fully supported by the city Brugge. Since 2018 is it a completely independent organization that works on sustainable food strategy in Brugge. They take a lot of actions to accomplish what they stand for. The problems they work with are local markets, city gardens, no food waste, Fairtrade products, sustainable fish and biological food. I wanted to know more about their solution for the food waste and if their solution is sustainable.
Hello everyone,
The project that I have chosen is Oogstappel. Oogstappel is a project that wants to bring consumers and agriculture closer together so that people get aware of the importance of sustainable agriculture. They do this by selling vegetables and fruits that are grown in a sustainable way. Before corona the organic farm was regularly open for visitors. When you went there the people that work at Oogstappel would inform you about the importance of organic farming , preservation of biodiversity and the reparation of the soil and the surrounding nature. Now that you have gotten some background information about Oogstappel, iam to tell you about my research question. My research question is: How does oogstappel do sustainable agriculture. They do this by growing their vegetables among fruit trees. This is called agroforestry. This is good for the biodiversity, the soil and the carbon sequestration. First I’m going to explain why it is good for the biodiversity. It is good for the biodiversity because the two plant species ( vegetables and fruit trees) create a more complex habitat. Because the habitat is more complex more the habitat can support more fauna. Secondly I’m going to explain why it is good for the soil. Agroforestry is good for the soil because it can prevent soil erosion ( the displacement of the upper layer of the soil). It prevents this thanks to the grasses that naturally grow in an agroforestry system. Grasses have a really big root system that bind the upper layer of the soil together so that it can’t move. Now I’m going to explain why agroforestry is good for the carbon sequestration ( the process of removing carbon dioxide). Agroforestry is good for the carbon sequestration because the trees that are planted can catch the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it so that it can’t go back into the atmosphere. This was my presentation about Oogstappel , if there are any questions you can write them down in the comments.
Hello everyone,
For my project I am going to find out if there is a difference between the waste from shopping in a supermarket or in a local shop.
Hello to anyone who reads this,
Even in a first world country such as Belgium poverty is still present, though not as prevalent as it may be in other countries. Because of this, there are many food banks present, all under one larger organization. I'm going to be looking into the fact if this is a sustainable organization. The first question is of course: where does this food come from? Most of the products gathered are products that could have been both imported or made here in Belgium. This already doesn't seem good.
There is however a large twist to this. These products aren't explicitly imported for the food banks, instead, they are products that would've been thrown into the trash otherwise. Thanks to this, they reduce waste by a large amount. However, they don't solely rely on wasted food, no. A large part, about a third, of their donations, are from the European food bank federation. This may cause some emissions due to it having to be transported to Belgium, but it's not nearly as far as it would be if it came from another continent.
Food for the Future is a unique project in which the Province of Flemish Brabant, Rikolto (Vredeseilanden), Colruyt Group, University College UCLL and KU Leuven together with young people, experts, farmers, etc. look for ways to feed the growing global population in a sustainable way. Food for the Future wishes to fuel the debate by bringing together people from the business community, governments, consumers and civil society organizations. They have chosen 3 products: Andean crops, pulses and seaweed.
I'm going to investigate why they have chosen their products and if they are sustainable or not. So my research question is: Why did the project food for the future chose the products: Andean crops, pulses and seaweed? Are these sustainable?
Hello everyone,
The food that we eat today comes from a lot of places around the world. This way of producing our food isn't sustainable enough in long term. With the growing world population, a lot of extra food production is going to be needed. This food can be produced in countries around the entire world, but it can also be grown close to the cities where the food will be consumed.
Nowadays many people move to an urban environment, rather than stay in rural areas. This is mostly the case because almost all of the jobs now are located in the big cities. As a result these cities expand themselves but not only in size, also in hight. A lot of the cities that exist today have a lot of high rise building at their centre. Because of the grow of cities and the population density a lot of food is needed to feed all the people that live in there without the land that is needed to grow al this food. This is why many developed countries import food from all around the world to feed their people, but this food need to be transported first. The transportation of all of the food that travels around the world contributes to almost 1/4th of all the carbon emissions around the world.
The problem to this solution? Growing crops close to where it is needed, near the cities. The only problem is that there is not enough space to grow all of the food, but a solutions has been found for this, vertical farms. Vertical farms can use up less space while producing way more food than traditional farms. These vertical farms can be used in combination with hydroponics farms, the growing of plants in water instead of soil, to be very cost efficient while still yielding a lot off food.
These vertical farms can be placed anywhere in or around cities where there is space left: parks, parking lots, but also abandoned warehouses. These abandoned places can be filled or replaced with farms that can together produce a lot of food.
Vertical farms are almost always very labour efficient, only a few people are needed to run one, so it will also help the potential unemployment in cities, but not a lot. Another positive thing about a farm like this is that they can run year-round because of the controlled climates that is used in them.
Urban Crop solutions is a Belgium company that sells scalable, city-based, vertical plant factories that can be placed anywhere if there is some space left. The factories have to ability to mimic any climate to make plant grow possible every time of the year. They also have very optimised light systems that makes sure that every plant gets light 100% of the time for maximum crop yield. Water that is given to the plants is recycled as much as possible, so that nothing is wasted.
An example of the work of Urban Crop Solutions is a banana nursery located at the university of Leuven in Belgium. Here they are working on grow new banana plants in climates that are more extreme compared to the climate nowadays on earth. After the plants are grown they are checked for resistances to the potential climate change and if any trees look promising, they are transferred to the African highlands to ensure the future of the local farmers there.
Hallo iedereen/hello everyone
Sustainable food (just like all issues) starts with ourselves but on our own we can't get the maximum out of sustainable food. Therefore we need to go all the way to its source: the farmes. I think in the future sustainable food will be very important and much needed and I think there are a lot of possibilities to make our food more sustainable by making changes to the way it's produced.
First of all lets start with our local (crop) farmland. The export of food emits a lot of carbon dioxide (which is obviously very bad) so if we maximize our local farmland we are going to need less or even no food from far export. Also our local farmers aren't sustainable enough already.
So: we need to make changes so we can get the maximum food and sustainability out of our farmland. think about for example:
- - getting more crops out of small space
- - get enough energy/water/(fertilizers) in a sustainable way
- - crop diversity
- - using different crops according to the season
- ...
=> i'm going to do my project about how we can increase the sustainability on our local farmland. There are so much examples of how me can increase sustainable farmland so i'm going to reduce my project to only a couple of examples.