A thousand people working on fair and sustainable food systems
The second ‘Voedsel Anders’ (Food Otherwise) conference in Wageningen, the Netherlands, brought together 1000 people working on fair and sustainable food systems.
The conference was a big success with many inspiring keynote speakers and over 60 workshops about practical and political ways to make the food transition. The workshops provided space for exchanging ideas and experiences on topics such as agroforestry, seeds, closed-loop farming, short chains, community supported agriculture, new peasants, urban farming, land rights and trade policies.
ILEIA was a part of the group that initiated and organised this event, which was supported by many individuals, dozens of farmer networks, civil society organisations and research institutes.
ILEIA hosted three sessions: Edith van Walsum facilitated a workshop on SRI with speakers Willem Stoop (researcher) and Pascal Gbenou from the Council of Rice Farmers in Benin. Janneke Bruil moderated the workshop “Agroecology worldwide: a practice, a science and a movement” with speakers Jyoti Fernandes from La Via Campesina and Heitor Teixeira (leader of the Brazilian student movement for agroecology). And finally, ILEIA’s Jessica Milgroom facilitated a session with Irene Cardoso on how agroecology was embedded in policy after strong advocacy by social movements in Brazil.
Olivier De Schutter, former UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food, made an intervention on how to transition to more sustainable systems.
More videos, reports and photos of the conference are available at www.voedselanders.nl.
Voedsel Anders is an emerging movement in the Netherlands and Belgium to make the transition to fair and sustainable food systems. It encompasses farmers, fisherfolk, scientists, beekeepers, students, artists, academics, policymakers, journalists and other active citizens. Voedsel Andersis organised around four major themes: agroecology, short chains and urban agriculture, fair and just trade policies and land rights and access to land.