Promoting change from field to plates: the case of nine European fair living-labs working collectively

Abstract

Gathering citizens, research organizations, companies, policymakers and practitioners is often considered sufficient for creating a Living-lab aimed at change towards food system sustainability.However, sustainability remains a social construct calling for a deliberation about the values that must be prioritised. These values need to be debated at each level of the food chain, from the choice of crops (neglected vs. main crops) and seeds (commons vs. intellectual property) through production (organic vs. weak agroecology) and processing (small-scale vs. industrial) to food supply and retail (local vs. global).The DIVINFOOD project’s Living-labs create favorable conditions for the emergence of such debates, in a food democracy perspective. Further to farmers, processors and researchers, they all aim to engage, around neglected and underutilized agrobiodiversity, groups of stakeholders that are still too rarely represented in participatory research approaches, such as teachers and students of agricultural schools, chefs, marginalized people, gardeners and citizen-led organisations.All actors are regularly invited into:● farmer’s fields to observe, evaluate and comment on cultivated biodiversity, and Genotype-Environment (GxE) interactions,● chefs’ kitchens to taste, co-create recipes,● laboratories to analyze, raise research questions, discuss results,● micro-enterprises to co-conduct diagnosis,● neighborhood associations to increase awareness about sustainable food systems,● meetings with policy-makers to co-develop short food chains and territorial networks.Each of the 9 Living-labs acts in its own territory. Bringing them together allows to shape a meta-Living-lab in which changes are studied, debated, observed, documented, initiated, and reflected.The connection of Living-labs makes it possible to think these changes locally and act globally for their realisation. By making collective decisions to give voice to very small structures in each region, this meta-living lab contributes to profound changes for the sustainability and diversity of the global food system.

Keywords

• participatory
• collaborative
• neglected and underu