Opportunities or blockers/burning questions in food production and preparation common to subgroups of participants have been discussed in order to focus good practices, share ideas or creatively invent new solutions.

Workshop process:

• Common opportunities or blockers/burning questions have been predefined from the proposed list shared on the GoogleDoc and commented by the participating partners.
• 3 subgroups are formed in order to match as much as possible requests and offers of experiences/competences.
• Designation of a workshop moderator and a script rapporteur (both stays at the table).
• Discussions at tables are organized in 3 rounds sharing in pairs successively best governance practices, failed governance practices and next governance practices and discussing them.
• Presentations of the presentation by each team (videotaped).
• Deliverable: 1 page written synthesis following a predefined recommendations template per groups by the script rapporteur.

Table topic: Creating a network/partnership between entrepreneurs, producers, transformers & sellers

Reporter name: Rob Renaerts

Initial questions:

. How to start the network/partnership?
. How to shift from informal to more structures and formal partnerships?
. How to enlarge exchanges between alternative and conventional food worlds?
. How to articulate a sustainable supply chain?
. How to maintain and upscale the network/partnership?

Contributors: Amersfoort, Bristol, Brussels, Lyon, Vaslui
Requesters: Amersfoort, Göteborg, Lyon, Messina, Vaslui

Best practices

• Starting with an informal network and letting them find what they want to do together. This works but it is difficult to control the direction of the projects that are developed.
• Creation of a local currency (Bristol Pound and independents) which must be spend on local products or independent producers.
• Projects between local producers and school kitchens.
• Bringing consumers and producers together in a website to close the loop between offer and demand. The project is run by an NGO funded by the municipality. A similar project brought farmers and sellers together and facilitated deals confirmed by a notary act. Unfortunately the project came to a stop when the facilitator stopped.
• Facebook group for the MAJOBO project which created a lot of interest for the project and which has proven that online communication can work.

Failed practices

• Small networks are not working together but competing with each other. Need for an umbrella network and continued counselling to make them work together.
• Always the same products in food boxes for poor people. The government are not able to make supermarkets diversify the products they are donating.
• Making different small distributors working together failed because off mistrust between the partners and wanting to keep there own clients in stead off sharing them with the new structure. Similar problems emerged between organic and classic producers who could not be resolved.  Another example of mistrust was seen by the lack off sharing information between microbrewers.

Promising practices

• Community supermarket where products of local producers can be sold. They also want to close the loop by giving the unsold products to food donation initiatives.
• Attracting new people and specialists in logistics who can get the project (which was on a dead end) moving again by working in small groups.
• Help for starting sustainable businesses like for instance organic poultry farm because there is a demand from consumers. It is not yet clear which type of support (financial, lighter administrative rules, etc.) is needed.
• Searching for funding for the animation of a network of sustainable actors.
• Working together with one partner and supporting the development of a test project.  If the test is successful and the policy adopted, they will receive a lot of positive communication the other players in the market will follow. This turns the mistrust between the partners is an advantage.
• Making an action plan for urban agriculture and create a centre for urban agriculture which stimulates collaboration between de different organisations.

Good practices: key word is stimulation.

• Free spaces for land or market places on local produce or low pricing for producers for new market stalls with local produce.
• Small farmers helped by the government with money for improving their business and keeping them in business (Ourense)
• Vaslui dedicated selling areas for local growers in supermarkets.
• Upscale from non-profit: create added value by using clever marketing strategies for the products. Do not compete on the marketing of price with bulk production for the regular food business

Failed practices: competition with existing food chain.

Vaslui: due to open EU market qualified people in the agricultural business move to other countries for better wages, leaving behind a potential interesting opportunity for urban en peri urban farming.
General: Common agricultural growers who are situated in peri urban regions do not have interest in general for producing food for their own city or region. They are part of the present major food chain.

Next practices: local network and awareness keywords

Foster the cooperation of the local food growing food chain on every aspect from growing, delivering and marketing to make it more profitable? Make local food production and agriculture more sexy.
Messina: get clear figures on abandon land, land in use, unemployment figures, the average dimension of a typical regional farm and combine those result in a statistical and economical algorithm for more insight policy actions.