AESOP4Food seminar 2024

A Transdisciplinary and Participatory Approach to Food System Resilience Planning

Discover the future of sustainable food planning with the AESOP4FOOD Erasmus+ program in 2024 an engaging online open course that's designed to empower individuals from diverse backgrounds, fostering a transdisciplinary and participatory learning experience.

Course in spring 2025

The AESOP4Food team continued the course in a slightly different mode in the spring of 2025, again on Thursdays from 17:00 CET from March until April 10, 2025.

Those who still want to benefit from the course can view the presentations and recordings of all the sessions of 2024.

The presentations and recordings of the previous courses, the reading list and other material can be found on other pages of this wiki.

Content and schedule

Key concepts: Agroecological Urbanism, Regional Agroecological Food Systems, Multi-level Governance, Food Justice, and Democracy.

International Collaboration: Embrace the opportunity to collaborate with international participants, each bringing their unique background and expertise from planning disciplines, agronomy, environmental sciences, and related fields.

Transdisciplinary Approach: Explore the theoretical foundations, case studies, and project presentations and engage in transdisciplinary learning, facilitated by Participatory Action Learning Research and Action Learning Research (PALAR).

Flexible: Learners, teachers, and teams can integrate this course into their own studio, project work or capacity building while formulating their own assignments. This approach is supported by a series of Living Labs focusing on food resilience.

Forms of Participation in 2024

1. Lectures and Discussions: Attend insightful lectures and engage in stimulating discussions to expand your knowledge. Participants who follow the course only in lecture mode, will not receive a certificate.
2. Assignments (5 ECTS): Dive deeper into sustainable food planning by working on practical assignments. Collaborate with small teams focused on Living Labs or projects, benefit from additional tutoring and feedback sessions, and present your results in intermediary sessions. Participants who succesfully complete the assignment will receive a certificate for the course.

Phases of planning with presentation and recordings

Here you will find the presentations and recordings for each phase. Those of the previous seminar in 2023 can be found here.

Kick Start Kit - to get to know the subject

For those who are just starting their journey in the field of sustainable food planning it may help to get an overview of how this discourse on sustainable food planning started, what the important driving factors of the systems are, and what the main challenges are. This preparation will take around 8 hours but may take more or less time for you depending on your language skills and experience with reference studies.

For this, you can start to make a concept map.

• Start with getting acquainted with what a concept map is. This may take 60 minutes.

You can use this background material: Before making the map you can read this article by Joseph D. Novak & Alberto J. Cañas about Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them. You can use any tool you like for producing the map, the easiest is just drawing and sketching. If you want to do it digital you might use the following open source software for producing your map: Cmap Tools or VUE - The Visual Understanding Environment.

Then view and read the following:

• View the video of Cathryn Steel on the Hungry City. Hungry Cities by Carolyn Steel video. 30 minutes.

Read the following pages of the reports of IPES-Food and FAO:

• FAO Report : "Integrating food into urban planning“. Read Chapter 1 Food and urban planning - The missing link, page 18 - 32. This will take 60 minutes.

This report aims to motivate city officials and their technical teams, urban planners, and related professionals to view food as central to a truly systemic approach, and to contribute to the understanding of the different factors involved in the inclusion of food in all urban planning efforts. The book presents cases and examples from all over the world. The introduction highlights serious challenges that planners need to address.

• IPES-food: From Plate to Planet: How local governments are driving action on climate change through food. Read the whole report page 1-28 and make notes of the main issues you consider relevant to your role and position. 120 minutes.

• IPES-food: Who’s Tipping the Scales? Briefing note. Read the Key messages- page 4, the Introduction- page 5-6, make sure you understand the schemes on page 11 and 13, read the recommendations page 28-30. This will take some 60 minutes.

• IPES-Food: Food from somewhere. Read the management summary, 6 pages, this will take 60 minutes.

This report dives into the subject of territorial markets and their role in food security, food justice, and food democracy. It explains the mechanisms behind the global corporate chains which are more and more replacing or assimilating other modes of provisioning. This is happening in the context of deteriorating food and nutritional security, the rise of diet-related disease, sustained food price inflation, and supply shocks – where people need healthy, diverse, and accessible food provisioning options more than ever. Local markets can weather shocks and deliver resilience because they are rooted in communities, landscapes, and cultures, and because they empower diverse networks of people to deliver food sovereignty and food security. The report highlights leverage points in support of territorial markets. Providing appropriate support for these systems would allow them to deliver further benefits for food security, equity, and ecological health – reinforcing their role as the cornerstone of food security and climate resilience for years to come.

• Finalise your concept map on sustainable food planning and note down questions you have regarding the subject. 120 minutes.

At the start of each course we will have a Q&A session discussing the questions.

Phase 1 - exploring the field of play

Themes: Main challenges, Theoretical frameworks, Approaches and methods: PAR, living labs, analysing methods; Defining your position and values

* Understands the concept of food systems in their cultural, local and regional setting.

• Can explain the main concepts related to participatory learning and research and the role of living labs.
• Can explain the main concepts related to sustainable food planning.
• Is aware of contemporary challenges to sustainable food systems in the context of spatial planning.
• Develops an understanding of the multiple dimensions of food systems: social, environmental, economic and spatial.
• Can define her/his own position and values regarding sustainable food planning.'

Session February 29, 2024

Roxana Triboi, LE:NOTRE Institute, presented an overview of the seminar with the main learning goals and Jeroen de Vries introduced the main concepts and the assignments. Damien Conaré, l'Institut Agro Montpellier, provided insight into the field of play, looking back at the development of food systems and showing the impact of the current system. He presented current initiatives and policies for sustainable food planning. You can view the PowerPoint here.

Session March 7, 2024

Jeroen de Vries, LE:NOTRE Institute presented a recap on the first session and highlighted the discourse that Chiara Tornaghi proposed in her paper on the Food Disabling City. The Long Food Movement report shows a positive scenario with a bottom-up approach that is empowered by civil society, in which each of us can choose a pathway that is most suited. The policy document for Agroforestry in the Netherlands shows how a multi-level approach can link niche initiatives to national and regional policies. Michiel Dehaene, Universiteit Gent, presented the development of the approach of an Agroecological Urbanism, with a set of building blocks that can be used as thematic entries for all planners. You can view the powerpoint presentation here.

Presentation of the introduction of participatory action research March 5, 2024

Jeroen de Vries, LE:NOTRE Institute, presented quality criteria, validation, and methods for participatory action research based on the publication of Wood and his experience in the Landscape Democracy Project. You can view the presentation here.

Phase 2: Food mapping: analysing your local foodscape

Themes: Mapping a food system; Mapping the stakeholders, consumers, and policymakers (power mapping); SWOT analysis

• Can map and evaluate a concrete situation of a food system.
• Can select the most adequate methods and tools to be applied for analysis and evaluation.
• Can identify stakeholders and power structures in a new and unknown context.
• Can map a local or city/region food system.
• Can define the most relevant challenges in a collaborative way.

Session March 14, 2024

The second phase focuses on the mapping of food systems. Marian Simón Rojo of UPM gave an introduction on the relevance of mapping for starting transformative actions and presented an overview of the types of mapping. You see the powerpoint here. Katrin Bohn, of Bohn&Viljoen Architects & the School of Architecture & Design of the University of Brighton, presented several projects and how mapping played a role in them. You can view the powerpoint of her presentation here. You can (re)view the lecture by Marian Simón Rojo and Katrin Bohn here.

Session March 21, 2024

The second session on food mapping with introductions by Jessica Milgroom, Assistant Professor (Research), Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience on Mapping for food-system change. She presented a research on the typology of various ways of mapping and the way these are used for transformation. Most maps were developed over a longer period, which calls for a curator for the map. An important conclusion is that you first need to define your goal for mapping and if it is a snapshot for analysis or a long-term map.

Ana Zazo Moratalla, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain), presented the detailed mapping for the city of Concepción in Chili, which served as a basis for a food strategy for the metropolitan area. The main goal was to understand the food system with its food sheds and it resilience and the food security for the inhabitants. An important element are the street markets which provide 75% of the fresh food. The research analysed the service areas of street markets and supermarkets, the production areas. It addresses both the conventonial system and the local food system, with alternative networks. Material can be found on http://leu.servicios.ubiobio.cl

You can (re)view the presentations by Jessica Milgroom and Ana Zazo Moratella here.

Padlet for Question and Answers

On this padlet all participants can ask questions on the content of the lectures of phases 1 and 2, the reading material, the assignments, the living labs, etcetera. Answers that can not be handled during the online session will be collected and later presented to the participants.

Phase 3. Objectives: Collaborative goals and vision

Themes: Collaborative goal setting; Selecting the challenges to address

• Can apply techniques of collaborative goal setting.
• Can formulate an approach and/or a possible solution for a selected challenge that is related to his/her own competences and role in the system.

Session April 4, 2024

Damien Conaré presents the theoretical background on collaborative goal setting and Clara Zamour (Terres en villes) presents a case study on Designing and implementing a local food strategy with a set of key messages. You can view the slides here. Part of the session is dedicated to collaborative goal setting using a mural which will be continued next week.

You can (re)view the recording of the session here.

If you are not familiar with using the mural application, it is advised to view this 3, 5 minutes instruction.

Session April 11, 2024

Jessica Halliday (RUAF) presented 'Food Policy Council – Lessons on inclusiveness' introducing the concept of food governance, multi-level stakeholder platforms, the role of food councils, and action planning. The slides of the presentation are here.

Intermediate presentations of the assignments by the participants, Thursday, April 18,2024

The presentations will be scheduled between 16h00 and 18h30 CEST. An overview will be presented here on April 16. Participants present in 15 minutes their project or assignment and will receive feedback. Also, the participants who follow the seminar in lecture mode are welcome to listen to the presentations.

Phase 4: Strategy and interventions

Themes: Scenarios, alternatives, strategy, prototyping, testing

• Can develop a strategy based on a joint vision making use of methods of scenario planning of alternatives.
• Can select and apply methods and tools for prototyping.
• Can develop a prototype based on the strategy and present it to/ discuss it with others for testing and evaluating.

Session April 25, 2024

Introduction by Michiel Dehaene, Ghent University on "Navigating the policy field of food planning" adressing:

• wicked problems - thinking uncertainty and disagreement
• policy navigation - a policy arrangement perspective
• strategizing: prototyping and scenario planning

Followed by a Q&A session and a short exercise on foresight approaches. You can view the presentation here.

Session May 16, 2024.

Michiel Dehaene provides us with a short recap of strategies and scenarios. Bram Vandemoortel of the Architecture Workroom Brussels, Open Space Platform gives a lecture on prototyping and problem-solution combinations. You can view the powerpoint here. Bram shows how prototypes can play a role in addressing the challenges of wicked problems and how an integrated place-oriented approach can help to solve contradictions in sectoral interests and regulations. The lecture places prototyping in the context of participation, programming and platforms, with local coalitions. He explains the role of prototyping in exploring ‘possibilities’ and mapping conditions in which prototypical action could unfold / could be systematically pursued. Examples of prototypes are the 'voedselpoort', a connector between urban and rural areas.

Phase 5: Evaluation & monitoring

Themes: collaborative evaluation; self-reflection

• Can have a critical reflection of the role of the planner in a pluralistic society (expert vs facilitator).
• Can reflect on his/her process, using feedback from others reflecting on cultural, social and economic differences. 

Session May 23, 2024.

Aleksandra Nowysz of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences gives an introduction to food systems evaluation. You can view the powerpoint here.

Roxana Triboi presents the development of Territorial Food Strategies in France and the way this was monitored in the region of Clermont Ferrand. You can view the presentation here.

Thibaud Lalanne, coordinator of the Centre for Sustainable Food Education of the municipality of Mouans-Sartoux (France) presents the Food Project of Mouans-Sartoux.

You can view the presentation of Thibaud Lalanne here. A summary of the main results from the three impact studies of the Territorial Food Project of Mouans-Sartoux’s municipalities can be downloaded here.

Session June 6, 2024.

Anna Podlasek of Warsaw University of Life Sciences presents the principles of monitoring and evaluation, both in the traditional way and in a collaborative / participatory way. She shows the process from goals, activities, results, outcomes to impact and describes the indicators for M&I. In her presentation there is a rich overview of tools and methods for evaluation. You can view the presentation here.