The project „Food&More” is a strategic partnership of four partners to design a European education programme for food consumer-citizens and disseminate it on local, national and European levels. The four partners are Tudatos Vásárlók Egyesülete (TVE, coordinator, Hungary), Asociace Mistnich Potravinovych Iniciativ (AMPI, Czech Republic) and Fundacja Ekorozwoju (FER, Poland) and the international network Urgenci (based in France). The implementation of “sustainable consumption and production” (SPC) as an integrated approach helps to achieve overall development plans, reduce future economic, environmental and social costs, strengthen economic competitiveness and reduce poverty. (UNEP EN, ABC for SCP, 2010). Food&More contributes to the achievement of these goals by the development of a non-formal educational programme for consumer-citizens, focusing on one key topic of SPC: food. The food we produce and consume has a significant impact on the environment. (EC’s EIPRO report, 2006). The sources of our needs analysis were the experience from directly working with food communities for more than a decade, annual survey of these active communities, in 2018 all partners actively participated in the European in-depth research of the financial sustainability and management coordination of solidarity based food systems. The European survey covered all partner countries, thus the results are representative to all partners (questionnaires filled in by 503 food citizens and farmers). The conclusion of the European Survey is that there is a strong, explicit need for more consumer participation in the management of food communities. Therefore in a consultative process we developed the Food&More project that is focused on the education of the most active consumer-citizens, so called food citizens. The training will equip them with knowledge from peers and trainers, skills, tools and motivation to enhance democratic participation in their communities. This way the food communities will operate in a more participatory way and become more sustainable, but this will not bring extra burden on the farmer. Our project is a non-formal educational programme which takes advantage of online learning. The project has three main pillars. I) To design a European core training programme for food citizens by 1) elaborating a participatory training programme with supporting tools, 2) to build capacity of staff and trainers in non-formal training methods and by 3) to run, evaluate, verify and improve the core programme (O1). II) To equip food citizens with educational methods and tools which can be applied in their food communities (O2-3) with 2) offering a mentorship system (O4) and also with 3) aiming to educate consumers about food citizenship (O2). III) To assure the dissemination and the accessibility of Food&More by 1) engaging key food citizens in the testing, verification and evaluation , 2) make the training program accessible on European level and with 3) building new alliances on local and international level for the long term sustainability of Food&More. Project partners line up several innovative elements in addition the specific content. The participatory methodology is supported with a specific mentorship system which will help staff and trainers of the project and also food citizens in carrying out community based education in their food communities. Partner organisations prioritize digital tools and OER, educational tools which will be published in most cases with Creative Commons (cc) licence which provides free, easy-to-use copyright license to share and use the chosen resources. During the project period, 1) a community based training programme will be elaborated with supporting tools (trainers guide and booklet), 2) 1 short term joint staff training event and 9 test training events will be organised with the participation of 116 adult learners, 3) a complex educational toolkit and an e-learning platform and a mentorship system will be organised for food citizens 4) 3 national and one Central-Eastern European Multiplier event will be organised. Partners plan to involve at least 25 participants with fewer opportunities into the elaboration and testing of Food&More. Partners will address allies, organise meetings with decision-makers and experts through dissemination activities, as well as disseminate the results to the wider audience reaching 32 European countries and thousands of people. Altogether, 1,7 million people will be addressed with the project. The learner based methodology of Food&More will contribute to the successful operation of food communities, the improvement of key competences and transversal skills of food citizens an on long term to the spread of SCP and locally working democratic communities in Europe.
The implementation of “sustainable consumption and production” (SPC) as an integrated approach helps to achieve overall development plans, reduce future economic, environmental, and social costs, strengthen economic competitiveness and reduce poverty. (UNEP EN, ABC for SCP, 2010). Food&More contributes to the achievement of these goals by the development of a non-formal educational programme for consumer-citizens, focusing on one key topic of SPC: food. Therefore, partners addressed a specific target group, “food citizens”: those consumers who are engaged in supporting sustainable and ethical food systems To achieve this aim, partners worked to reach the following objectives: 1) design a European training programme for food citizens, 2) build the capacity of staff and trainers in non-formal training methods, 3) equip food citizens with educational methodologies and tools, 4) offer mentoring, 5) educate consumers about food citizenship (O2), test, evaluate, verify and improve the educational program and its tools and disseminate the educational program and its tools on the national and European levels.
Project partners are environmental NGOs with the mission to achieve sustainable consumption and production, addressing conscious consumers. Based on UN: “Sustainable Consumption and Production is also about decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation, increasing resource efficiency, and promoting sustainable lifestyles.” The “Farm to Fork Strategy” also explains we need to make food systems fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly to address this situation. Partners work with “solidarity-based food systems” for more than a decade, including food communities like Community Supported Agriculture or food cooperatives. The conclusion of the partners’ own research and needs analyses were that there was a strong, explicit need for more consumer participation in the management of food communities. Our joint aim is to support behavioural change, so we applied for the Food&More project to develop a non-formal educational programme and supporting educational tools to provide consumers (food citizens) knowledge and practical tools that can help them to support sustainable food systems. This became even more relevant when we experienced the fragility of our food systems during the Covid 19 period.