The City of Oslo joined the “Food System Change Online Congress” in March to present Oslo as a city assuming responsibility for food production. Watch the video here:

Oslo has a long history of growing food in the city and is particularly known for its development of school gardens and allotment gardens in the early 20th century, which helped feed the citizens during WWI and especially WWII. While agricultural industrialization has led to a decline of food production in the city duringthe second half of the 20th century and the focus has shifted from growing food as a necessity to growing food for social and educational purposes, more and more people are again getting interested in urban gardening. Since 2017 the municipality has supported over 300 urban gardening projects through its grant scheme of 200.000 Euros annually.

Kindergardens, housing cooperation, nursing homes, volunteer groups, social and green entrepreneurs and many more have received support to start their projects. In 2019 Oslo municipality adopted the strategy “Sprouting Oslo – Room for everyone in the city’s green spaces” to support a green city development, strengthen local food production, create more green social places and activities, build up school garden teaching, and promote collaboration, knowledge transfer and innovation in urban agriculture. Through the participation in EdiCitNet, Oslo municipality has gained a deeper insight into engagement of citizens in urban agriculture projects, how to reach disadvantaged groups and provide valuable work experiences, and thus support the city reach its strategic goals. EdiCitNet has also enabled the municipality to help new entrepreneurs to kick-start their ideas while receiving guidance through a difficult first year as a farm-entrepreneur.

The event: “ECS projects for Carthage, EdiCit Carthage”, which took place on March 19, 2020 in Tunis, was organized by REACT in collaboration with the Municipality of Carthage. This is the interview stage of the selection process of candidates in response to the “Edicit Carthage” call. This call aims at identifying innovative and sustainable ECS projects to be implemented in Carthage. This event was dedicated to interviews of the invited five candidates. Each ECS holder presented his project, which was discussed with the members of the evaluation committee made up of members of the Municipality of Carthage, REACT, and expert. This discussion provided an opportunity to exchange deeply with the candidates. The assessment was made based on criteria such as the feasibility and sustainability of the project, the commitment and the know-how of the candidate. The interviews conduction by the committee was perceived as specific coaching for ECS holders who demonstrated enthusiasm and motivation for making Carthage edible city e.g.; Improving the quality of life was the motivation and the goal:”It is a project which aims to improve our lives, a healthy and clean life for all the citizens of Carthage” Karim Ben Yaala, Amiris Carthage project.

Also, this call was for other an opportunity to revive the past: “Regarding this project, it is in my native neighborhood, that has become a black point between Carthage and Kram, we hope with this project to replicate the lived past to create our future, to renew the ties of neighborhoods which were very solid “Jaafer Abdellaoui, An edible garden for all in Carthage Yasmina project.

The interview session was followed by the selection session, during which committee members discussed the projects and their adequacy with the criteria and objectives of the “EdiCit Carthage” call. The selected projects will be considered as pilot projects at the municipality of Carthage and it is expected that their establishment in the city will boost the change to an edible city. We thank a lot all candidates for this call and salute their engagement and initiatives to make the city of Carthage an edible city.

“I really wanted to thank REACT and the Municipality of Carthage who gave us the opportunity to present our projects, and especially the initiative they took to make Carthage a greener city, it’s really refreshing” Moez Farhat, Kartagrow Project. The movement of the transition of Carthage to an edible city seems well underway!!

At the last City Team meeting five fields of actions were defined: urban food system, urban planning, education, empowerment and environmental justice & climate. Those actions fields were further discussed and specified. These fields of action might still be altered and will be further developed and discussed in working groups. The BOKU Wien gave an input to define system elements for the different fields of action.

Furthermore, there was an update by the process of the different Living Labs in Berlin. A status of the analysis and interviews of the different edible cities solutions in Berlin was given.

The webinar series “Innovation for SDGs: inspirational tools towards sustainability challenges” focuses on opportunities and new trends in the fields of research and innovation. The goal was to debate and advance towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The session was moderated by Joaquim Comas, researcher at the Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA) and WP2 leader of EdiCitNet project. Corinne Trommsdorff (CEO & Founder at Water Cities.org), delivered an inspiring presentation about Water-Wise Cities. Regina Gnirss (Head of Research & Development, Berliner Wasserbetriebe) presentation was focused on sustainable management of Water Cycle, with especial attention to the city of Berlin.

Joana Castellar as a representative of WP2 lead (ICRA) delivered a presentation entitled “(Circular) nature-based Solutions”. The presentation delivered a critical discussion about what is and what is not a Nature-Based Solution (NBS), with special focus on the role of biodiversity for the conceptualization of NBS. Moreover, insights were given about the design of NBS for promoting circular management of resources in cities, especially water and food.

Finally, The EdiCitNet toolbox was presented, as an interactive space for knowledge sharing. Special attention was given to the diverse functionalities provided such as:

• An interactive Catalogue in which any person can create profiles for their (edible)NBS. Such profiles showcase technical information and offers a set of interactive functions that make it a true social network for users (civil society, urban planners, researchers).
• A Design and planning tool which enables users to create their own initiative(s) by giving insights about resources needed and food potential.
• A Performance assessment tool which enables user to compare the performance of these initiatives in terms of sustainability, urban challenges, and ecosystem services.

Josep Pueyo-Ros, the main designer of the Edible City Game, in WP2, is invited to do a conference in the forthcoming Tygron Edu Event 2021, on 8th April. Tygron is the software used to develop the Edible City Game (the Edicitnet’s serious game). The conference’s title is “Work independently with the Tygron Platform”. Josep will explain how he got started with the software himself. And, of course he also will show his use case, a serious game to foster Edible City Solutions.

Likewise, Josep will also introduce the Edible City Game in Ecosystem Services Partnership European Conference, will will take place on the second week of June, in Tartu, Estonia (but also virtually). The title of the accepted communication is “The Edible Game: A participatory approach to foster edible nature-based solutions” and will be presented in the session “S8b – Planning nature-based solutions while keeping people’ s preferences in mind”.

Both are great opportunities to share Edicitnet beyond the project.

In this episode of the podcast series “Sprout to Be Alive!” they discuss how cities like Berlin can use urban agriculture initiatives to ensure a sustainable and local food supply, while also improving urban climate and Berliners’ quality of life.
⁠
The interview is available in German and you can find it here: https://www.urania.de/sprout-be-alive-3”