Last Thursday (20 February 2020), a fresh group of 20 international young professionals working in the food system kicked off the third edition of the Flevo Campus Think Tank. During several program days over the next three months, they will – hopefully – create new circular solutions for connecting rural and urban areas in the food system. To get there, they will first expand their knowledge about urban food supply, food transition and already existing connections between consumers in the city and food producers in the surroundings. The scene for this research: Almere, Flevoland.

Flevo Campus has several reasons to organize this Thank Thank. If we want to feed the people in the future (of which 80% will live in cities by 2050) we need to come up with innovative ideas and new solutions – technical, social and ecological. The Flevo Campus Think Thank has as a goal to find those solutions. Why do some local food solutions work so well while others don’t? How can we organize food and the city in such a way that farmers, consumers and the planet may benefit from it? These are some of the main questions that the 20 young professionals will try to give an answer to.

Want to stay updated about the Flevo Campus Think Tank and how the participants will tackle this challenge? Subscribe to the monthly Flevo Campus newsletter!

Diversity in Almere

The program started off with a very broad immersion into the world of food. Last Thursday, the participants met each other for the first time at the Stadsboerderij, Almere. After an extensive introduction session, they were presented with a ‘crashcourse food transition’ by Joris Lohman. (Watch an online version of this crashcourse – in Dutch) Tineke van den Berg, farmer at Stadsboerderij Almere, gave a tour and told the participants everything about being a ‘city farmer’. You can find out more about this special farm in the first episode of Flevo Campus Farms. 

Check out all pictures of the Think Tank kick-off on Facebook

For this third edition of the Think Tank, Flevo Campus has been actively recruiting international participants. The result: young professionals from countries as diverse as Spain, Hungary, Singapore are participating in this year’s Think Tank.

Even with their diverse range of knowledge, the participants do face a huge challenge. Almere can be considered a ‘snack city’; there is a large supply of fast food. At the same time, the surroundings of Almere (the agricultural areas of Flevoland) are fertile grounds for food production. Why do the citizens of Almere eat so little of this produce? Which underlying mechanisms are at work here? The Think Tank’s end goal is ambitious: the participants will eventually come up with a strategy, in whatever form, to make sure that in 2022 the citizens of Almere will source 22% of their food locally.

Are you interested in participating in the next Flevo Campus Think Tank (2021) or Summer School (August 2020 – in Dutch only)? Fill out this form and you’ll be the first to know when the registration opens!