INSPIRATION FROM FRANCE

I recently worked with Mark Driscoll of Tasting the Future on an assignment on opportunities to support subnational food system actors across Europe for Healthy Food Healthy Planet.  add sentence on the rationale

I found the dynamism in France particularly inspiring, in places where there has been acting differently to local challenges and years of patient work and new processes for citizen engagement, food education and developing local food culture. 

The great privilege of these projects where you interview people directly involved, makes you think about what I’d love to bring back to my home city in England.

There are three examples that stood out for me but there are many more. 

Rethinking food aid

The concept of Social Security for Food arose in Montpellier from a citizen engagement to address household food insecurity and find a means for universal access to good quality, healthy food, as well as addressing broader environmental and labour issues in the production. In 2023,  a common fund was formed modelled similarly to the social security provision, where each member contributes up to 100 Euros. The now 400 members each then receive 100 Euros in a local currency that they can spend in only local supermarkets that have been certified by the citizen group as providing food that meets ethical, environmental and organic criteria. The fund is supplemented by public and private funds. This initiative is now being replicated in other cities including Toulouse, Bordeaux and Paris. 

BBC article

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230321-cost-of-living-europes-trials-in-social-security 

Building organic supply in school food

The Municipal Mouans Sartoux, which is a small town in the south of France has developed its farm to supply over 85% of its vegetables organic for its school meals. It’s also been an opportunity to connect children directly with food growing and broader food education. The initiative started in 1998 under the leadership of the Mayor who during the Mad Cow disease wanted to source organic beef for schools from local farms. Today the school canteens are supplied by 100% organic and the costs have been mitigated through the reduction in food waste. From farming itself and supporting urban planning that prioritises agricultural use, it now has a broader goal in supporting land around the town back into food production by finding land for new grower entrants. 

Supplying the city with a new network of farms

Much of the local food-growing infrastructure has disappeared with the growth of large international supply chains for fresh food. There are many arguments for relocalisation but few places where you can point to serious joined-up investment. Imagine a town starting a start-up to create a network of new farms to reduce the carbon footprint of food, support the local economy and strengthen local resilience. In Pau, the municipality has set up a cooperative company to support the start-up of farmers in small plots (average two hectares) to produce fruit, veg and meat for the city. The programme has a range of investors from the city authority, private banks and local citizen investors,  It also provides technical, mentoring and commercial support to the growers

https://eurocities.eu/stories/paus-farming-start-up-renaissance/