Sustainable Food

The conference ‘Rethinking the Rural-urban Relationship for Food System Transformation’ was held on Tuesday 9 April at the Sala Cotxeres in Barcelona’s Palau Robert as part of the Annual Technology Transfer Plan (PATT) of the Department for Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda. More than 100 people gathered to examine the situation and challenges facing farmers, the relationships between the rural and urban worlds of Catalonia within the current context of the climate emergency and the price crisis, and to rethink how to deal via them with an agroecological transition that involves producers, citizens and public administrations.

The opening speech by Enric Tello, a professor at the Universitat de Barcelona and expert in food system sustainability and agrarian landscapes, focused on the idea that the food system is part of the climate emergency problem but can also be a solution to it: ‘Agroecology regenerates soil because it can capture more CO2 and is more fertile, retains more water and creates mosaic landscapes, which are good for biodiversity, and this is why we need farmers near cities, too’.

‘The agroecological transition is undertaken with the head, heart and hands’

After an agroecological breakfast served by Tsuru, the conference continued with three debate panels that included professionals and experts from different fields, like culture, production, distribution, consumption and public food policies.

Valuing and respecting farmers’ work was a core idea, because they are often romanticised from an urban perspective. And the most direct way to put this into practice is by consuming local and agroecological food, because ‘eating is a political act and people know how to understand that, but we have to make more efforts to teach and communicate all the implications of what we buy’, summarised Rosa Cerarols, a geographer and anthropologist at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF).

In a similar vein, the closing speech by Neus Monllor, an agrosocial consultant, and Dirk Madriles, a shepherd and representative of the Network for the Handover of Agricultural Holdings, underscored the need to promote affective bonds and respect, beyond mere economics: ‘We know how to create functionally perfect logistics chains, but what are the values? We don’t need complex engineering inventions but instead have to bring to the current context values like respect and responsibility that we already know so that the agroecological transition is undertaken with the head, heart and hands,’ concluded Neus Monllor.

Administrations joining forces

The conference was organised by the Joint Office for Sustainable Food (OCAS), which includes the Government of Catalonia, the Barcelona City Council, the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB) and the public company Catalan Food Promoter (PRODECA). The goal of this joint office is to put into practice ‘an innovative form of collaboration by joining efforts and creating joint projects in order to make healthier and more sustainable food affordable and accessible for all citizens, with fairer prices for farmers’, as Lidón Martrat, the coordinator, explained.

These goals can be seen in the different administrations’ lines of action, yet they also involve different sectors and regions and require cooperation and collaboration. Ester Vidal, Director of the Social and Solidarity Economy and Sustainable Food Service of the Barcelona City Council, noted that ‘after the work that everyone has done in recent years, we saw that it made sense to share advances and generate knowledge and debate because this would be hard to solve alone’.