On February 21th the Amersfoort local support group ‘EEM” (called after Eem,  the small river which supported historical Amersfoort with food and trade merchandise) had their second meeting at  city farm Groot Weede in Amersfoort. About 20 stakeholders are participants of EEM, representing urban farms, biological supermarkets, distributor of  ‘farmers boxes’, local politcians, restaurant and catering entrepeneurs, CSA/food collectives, local food adaptors and potential entrepeneurs who seek opportunties to start a local food business in the region of Amersfoort. The main purpose of EEM is get local food more available for the public by connecting  several local and regional food initiatives, to know, learn and stimulate each other and to facilitate opportunities.

As a result of the first meeting  6 topics/fields of interest where selected on the ‘needs’ of Amersfoort regarding local food strategy. Finally two items, smart distribution of regional food and a small case study on “who feeds Amersfoort’ as a benchmark on the Bristol study were adopted and are know researched by students of the Utrecht University and CAH Dronten (agricultural business school).

A representative of Amersfoort municipality presented a summary on green procurement/urban farming in the City and the possiblities to encourage citizens to start their own local green (food) initiative. A proposal in Amersfoort city council on urban farming is still pending at the moment.

Several initiatives contacted the coordinators of EEM to discuss: a new city farm concept using wasteland plots for urban farming, new farmers markets ideas in municipalities in the region Amersfoort, a supermarket who is interested to expand the range of local produced food.

Meanwhile we are planning the program and next transnational Urbact meeting in Amersfoort (April 23 th- 25th).

Contributed by Cor Holtackers