On the 6th and 7th of November, the URGENCI team hosted the 3rd European exchange in the framework of the EU Food Security HUB project.
During the two days of the meeting, participants from partner organizations – ACRA (Italy), IASIS (Greece), LAND (Italy), ABD and EQU (Spain), together with other local organizations invited by our parters, joined us in Lyon for this event.
During this meeting, we had the opportunity to test the training material created during the project, but also to talk more about Food Sovereignty and the history of our movement.
We critically analysed and discussed concepts such as Circular Economy and how to effectively advocate for the Right to Food and Social Justice in Food Systems.
We also enjoyed moments of discussion with Food Accessibility initiatives like Territoires à VivreS, and Caisse Alimentaire Lyon 8 during our lunch at La Récupéria, a committed and active association in the fight against food waste.
On the second day, we had the pleasure of visiting the offices of Réseau AMAP Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and MIRAMAP – Mouvement Inter-Régional des AMAP and talk to the staff to learn about their work and their initiatives, especially regarding the topic of access to food, to show more about the world of AMAP and LSPAs,.
In recent years, this topic has been considered more and more important, yet it is clear that several factors are increasingly distancing citizens from their chosen food, such as economic and financial aspects, like in the case of inflation, which has a heavy impact on the price of raw materials, or lower incoms, but also because of cultural and geographical aspects, like in the case of areas where people have limited access to healthy and nutritious foods.
It is, however, in this context that the AMAP movement has chosen to take up this question and to think about how to ‘improve’ in this regard, tackling food precarity and all its triggering factors.
You can find their guide “Creating new food solidarities in AMAP – Acting in AMAP for the access of all to a sustainable and chosen food” here.
In the evening, we were also able to visit the delivery of AMAPopote, seeing in action an AMAP directly dealing with the issue of food accessibility for all, that has put in place solidarity contracts to ensure that everyone can have access to fresh, seasonal, and quality food.
