Our food system has a major impact on climate, our health, economy and identity. Making the food system sustainable requires new and ambitious policies. At all levels. From local to international. We need local governments and European policies, but also the strong role of the provinces. Only in this way can we ensure that everyone is on board and that we can have systemic impact.
HarvE(a)st Flanders is the first provincial food strategy in Flanders (specifically for the province of East-Flanders). A strategy which sets out the outlines of where and how a province can have an impact on the food system.
Together with Levuur, Let us guided the participation process to arrive at a reasoned strategy. Through workshops, focus groups and stakeholder events, we arrived at a supported vision of the role of a province. This defines the role of the province, ranging from regional levers to an exemplary role and agriculture of the future. The process involved both external actors and internal departments and resulted in a vision but also a lot of concrete ideas to work with. Let us also took the pen to write out the strategy, bringing not only process support but also content expertise on board. And in the meantime, next steps are being taken to translate the direction and ideas into very concrete steps forward.
HarvE(a)ast Flanders put the role of the provinces on the map, has meanwhile also inspired other provinces to get started and is looking for synergies with the Flemish food strategy Go4Food.
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