Defining fields of action for the master plan process was the aim of this City Team meeting in February. ⁠

The master plans are a key part of the EdiCitNet project, and will guide the City Teams in developing a tailor-made strategy to integrate Edible City Solutions (ECS) into disadvantaged inner city and suburban neighborhoods, to promote social cohesion and to improve quality of life for the inhabitants.⁠

After a short input by the Working Package 4 lead BOKU Vienna, the City Team collected ideas in a lively online brainstorming session. ⁠

They ended up defining five key fields of action: ⁠

• consumer and producer relationship⁠
• urban planning⁠
• education⁠
• empowerment and ⁠
• environmental justice. ⁠

These fields of action might still be altered and will be further developed and discussed in working groups.

The Front Runner City Berlin has two Living Labs: one in Hellersdorf and one in Neukölln.

Hellersdorf

In Hellersdorf, the Prinzessinnengarten team created a list of plants for the ECS “edible landscaping”, which fulfills the criteria of edible landscaping and focuses on indigenous, robust wild perennials that promote insects. Subsequent efforts have been made to formulate next steps and identify financial means to cover the potentially higher costs of edible plantings.

In winter 2020/21, more concrete work was done on the planning of possible products within the framework of the ECS “product development”. They concentrate on the cultivation of mint and savory and cooperate closely with the St. Jacobi / Neukölln real-life laboratory for the production of mint tea and savory syrup.

In February and March 2021, the program is planned for the 2021 season: activities, festivals and gardening days. Of course, it is important to wait and see the course of the corona pandemic.

Neukölln

The community garden of the Prinzessinnengärten at the New St. Jacobi Cemetery started in 2018. The City Team Neukölln was founded in a “kick-off event” on October 26th, 2020. First, focus topics are developed, from which edible solutions are then concretized:

• The Living Lab “as a place of active participation of the neighborhood for a lively, participatory quarter and cemetery development.”
• The Living Lab “as an environmentally friendly and low-threshold place of learning for sustainable and climate-friendly urban nature and urban agriculture.”
• The Living Lab “as a designer in a cautious change of the cemetery while promoting biological diversity and maintaining a green memorial and recreation area.” The Prinzessinnengarten is currently working on textual elaborations on the ECS
• “Product development” (together with Living Lab Hellersdorf),
• “Kiez Action Days”
• “Edible city all year round” and
• “Cemetery Conversion and Mourning Culture”.

The ECS drafts are to be coordinated with the City Team Neukölln from March 2021 and then included in the overall implementation plan for Berlin.

In addition to the two Living Labs in Hellersdorf and Neukölln, work is also being carried out in Berlin on a strategy to promote the “Edible City” for all of Berlin, the so-called “Master Plan”. The central question in Berlin is how community gardens should be designed in order to strengthen socially disadvantaged neighborhoods (neighborhood management areas).

At the last meeting, fields of action were jointly defined in which goals should / must be achieved, e.g. “Participation & Participation” and “Planning Instruments”.

Since 2006 Brighton & Hove has used a cross sector food strategy approach to take a systemic approach to achieving healthy, sustainable and fair food for all. The work is led by EdiCitNet partner Brighton & Hove Food Partnership (BHFP) an independent, politically neutral not-for-profit. More than 200 city-based organisations are partners in the strategy including schools, universities, community food projects and the city authority Brighton & Hove City Council.

In November 2020 Brighton & Hove became the first place in the UK to be awarded a Sustainable Food Place Gold Award.

The Food Partnership’s approach is to bring together businesses, grassroots community and voluntary groups, local authority departments and individuals across the city to work in partnership because together we can solve complex problems.

BHFP also worked with the City Council to sign the Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration, a global initiative that brings together local authorities to act on the climate emergency by committing to putting food at the heart of climate action plans. BHFP encourage frontrunner and follower cities to sign the Glasgow Declaration in advance of COP26 happening next year in Glasgow. More information here.

The first Thursday of February took place a WP2 meeting with great news. WP2 announced that the toolbox is ready to collect information on Edible City Solutions. The main functionalities of the toolbox are already working and EdiCitNet partners can use it to map the Edible City Solutions in their cities. As well as for Edible City Solutions of the rest of the world.

Once a profile for an Edible City Solution is created, it appears on the Edible Map and toolbox users can visualize its public profile and receive comments from other users. The users can search Edible City Solutions using basic and advanced filters to find relevant information for their needs. Then, through the Edible List, that information can be downloaded in an excel file for further analysis. Furthermore, Edible City Solutions can get a concise assessment in terms of sustainability, urban challenges and ecosystem services based on the data they provided.

In the same meeting, WP2 discussed with cities the best strategies to collect data from the Edible City Solutions in order to be as efficient as possible.

WP2 is very glad to announce that the ECS profile (in English) is already available on the EdiCitNet toolbox web.  The ECS PROFILE aims to promote an interactive and inclusive knowledge sharing among people already involved, or willing to get involved, with the edible city movement.  The ECS PROFILE showcase diverse information such as:

– Short description
– Starting year
– Type of ECS (i.e private garden, local market, community kitchen)
– Location and contact
– Link to social medias
– List of edible goods and activities
– Network
– Type of ownership and funding
– Marketing strategies
– Initial budget and running cost
– Type of access (private or public)
– Edible and non-edible nature-based solutions
– Production methods

Furthermore, participants of a certain ECS can give their feedback though the ECS profile by clicking on “SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE”.

Addionally, the ECS profile puts forward a unique performance assessment in terms or sustainability, urban challenges and ecosystem services addressed.

Coming soon (spoiler alert)! Currently, WP2 team is working on a set of interactive features which are based on exiting social medias such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. The idea is that users will be able to interact with a ECS by leaving comments and questions and following an ECS PROFILE to get updates on events and news.

The City Team discussed the different already existing edible city solutions which will be further analyzed for the EdiCitNet Masterplan Berlin. As an outcome of the meeting, a short description of the projects was prepared. As part of the analysis of those projects, local ECS developers and teams will be interviewed.

Here, feedback on the questionnaires is expected from everyone. We hope to encourage more projects to register on the EdiCitNet Toolbox as well. The City Team is also working on a factsheet about the EdiCitNet research project to enable political involvement.

Furthermore, Terms of Reference were discussed and adapted.