Barcelona + Sostenible

Five years ago, Barcelona hadn’t yet been selected to host the seventh Milan Pact Global Forum, the catalyst that sparked off a host of projects aimed at transforming the city’s food system. The foundations hadn’t even been laid for the process of developing a city strategy, which eventually resulted in the Barcelona 2030 Healthy and Sustainable Food Strategy. However, what did exist was the need to create an open, participatory space in which the different agents could work together to transform the food system, based on the values of agroecology and food sovereignty. This is the origin of Agròpolis.

Supported by Barcelona City Council, this space for interaction, inter-cooperation and promoting the agroecological sector was launched at the beginning of 2019. Initial meetings were held, and various working groups were set up during that first year. But then COVID appeared on the scene, and everything ground to a halt.

After maintaining minimal activity in a virtual format throughout 2020 and a good part of 2021, finally, from 2022, the space was revitalised and truly found its niche. In fact, thanks to the momentum gained in recent years, Agròpolis has finally managed to consolidate itself as the meeting point it was originally intended to be, redefining the participatory space, getting new organisations to join – currently there are around 105 – and organising new activities of interest.

The Agro Hackathon, an example of inter-cooperation

One of the most outstanding initiatives launched within the Agròpolis framework is the Agro Hackathon, a day devoted to co-creation designed to promote the development of inter-cooperation projects linked to agroecology and food sovereignty.

To date, three editions have been held, and all have been very successful in terms of levels of participation, and have been highly commended by those taking part. Furthermore, these sessions have fostered a number of collaborations between member organisations.

It should be noted that the inter-cooperation projects that arise within this framework have the opportunity to obtain funding for developing the initial design and co-creation stages through the Impulsem el Que Fas call for grant applications. So far, three initiatives have been awarded grants under the scheme

Other Agròpolis Activities

Apart from the Agro Hackathon, the monographic sessions organised to address and explore specific debates and challenges in depth have also been very well received, as have the networking and community-building activities devised – from the creation of a Telegram channel for sharing activities and resources and opening up spaces for debate, to the organisation of project visits.

In terms of topic-based sessions, in the last year the issues of how to communicate the need for change in the food system, how to introduce viewpoints from other cultures into the story of sustainable food, and what European funding opportunities exist for local entities have been addressed.

The future of Agropòlis

The Urban Food Policies and Responsible Consumption Section at Barcelona City Council is continuing to work to consolidate the space with an interesting programme of activities, encouraging organisations to take part in drafting the work plan.

Moreover, among the challenges for the future is also the need to promote Agròpolis to organisations as a dynamic resource that is available to them for holding seminars, training sessions or even promoting projects, as well as involving other areas of the City Council in order to work together on issues that are of interest to members.

In the coming months, one of the priorities will be to continue to provide impetus for the working groups focused on urban allotments that emerged from an inter-cooperation day organised jointly with the Mans al Verd programme.