CULTIVATE: CO-DESIGNING FOOD SHARING INNOVATION FOR RESILIENCE

Project Information

CULTIVATE

Grant agreement ID: 101083377

DOI

10.3030/101083377

EC signature date 24 October 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Total cost

€ 9 079 268,75

EU contribution

€ 9 025 268,50

Coordinated by

THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD, OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CULTIVATE (CULTIVATE: CO-DESIGNING FOOD SHARING INNOVATION FOR RESILIENCE)

Reporting period: 2024-07-01 to 2025-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Strengthening food systems in urban and peri-urban (UPU) areas is vital for global health, sustainability and resilience. The CULTIVATE project contributes directly to this by collaboratively developing, with communities, local governments, and FSI experts (a co-design process), tools to support sustainable UPU food sharing initiatives (FSIs). FSIs are collective actions where people share food and related resources, such as community gardens and kitchens and surplus food redistribution initiatives, to create more resilient food environments. CULTIVATE creates large-scale impact by developing and disseminating vital tools under the umbrella of the CULTIVATE Compass containing the:

· Food Sharing Map: An AI supported mapping tool and an interactive map of FSIs searchable by location, activity and type of sharing. The expandable baseline map provides robust data on the nature and distribution of FSIs for local food planning across 100+ UPU areas in Europe. It assists food supply actors who wish to donate food to FSIs near their operations. It identifies the precise location of FSIs for citizens wishing to engage in food sharing where they live. It helps FSIs to connect with similar organisations in their area, nationally, and internationally

· Food Sharing Calculator: Three tools to establish the costs, benefits and impacts of FSIs, ensuring their contributions to the sustainable development goals are fully recognised by participants, funders and regulators. These interactive tools generate key information for decision-making, identifying both the specific investments needed to help FSIs grow across the EU and the positive contributions FSIs make to the sustainable development goals.

· Menu of Good Governance: This expandable tool supports both governments and FSIs to identify solutions to regulatory mechanisms that constrain FSIs activities. Providing a searchable suite of governance actions this tool facilitates appropriate regulation of existing FSIs and helps generate a policy context that encourages the establishment of new ones.

· Library of Citizen Engagement: This tool helps FSIs, community organisers and municipalities improve the knowledge, skills and capabilities of citizens in relation to food. It provides an extensive list of engagement tools and games and successful stories of citizen engagement. All are searchable by format, purpose, and target audience, and categorised by the resources required to run them.

· Food Sharing Community of Practice (CoP): This network facilitates knowledge and experience exchange amongst FSIs and allies, helping organise and amplify the collective impacts and concerns of FSIs at local, national and EU levels. The diverse skills of CULTIVATE’s core FSI partners, and the resources developed through CULTIVATE with them, form an expandable CoP of 100+ FSIs.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The Compass and constituent tools deliver several key results:

· Empowering local decision-making: The Food Sharing Map allows policy makers, citizens and FSIs to see the variety and distribution of food sharing in their areas, identifying areas of low provision and targeting support for new FSIs where needs are clear. Built and tested across 105 UPU areas, the Map documents 4000+ initiatives. The results of mapping have also been used in conjunction with impact data generated via the Calculator to establish sustainability contributions from FSIs in 9 locations.

· Proving value for investment: The Food Sharing Calculator provides a robust means for municipalities and citizens seeking to establish FSIs to identify and consider investments in relation to impacts. It is grounded in the CULTIVATE framework of challenges, risks, and costs and benefits of food sharing and SHARING SOLUTIONS Toolshed indicators. The tool has been tested across 9 UPU locations, generating 12 FSI and 9 municipal level sustainability impact reports, with nine retailers receiving reports detailing sustainability impacts from reducing food waste via surplus food donations.

· Removing policy barriers: The Menu of Good Governance tool offers an interactive way for policy makers, FSIs and prospective leaders of FSIs to identify policy solutions to existing barriers. It guides users to identify solutions which have worked in other locations and resources which can be used to lobby for policy change. Tested across 5 UPU areas and including a guidebook on inclusive, participatory and resilient sustainable urban food sharing scenario planning, this tool is expandable as policies evolve.

· Boosting public participation: Engaging people in food sharing initiatives is vital. The expandable Citizen Engagement Library, including 100+ activities and games gives FSIs, municipalities and community groups the means to increase learning about food within their communities, making it accessible and fun. This has been tested across 7 UPU areas through bespoke engagement activities and includes resources in multiple languages with low text options for ease of use where language constraints exist.

· Expanding FSI networks: A CoP for FSIs and allies has solid roots in CULTIVATE’s core FSI partners who are bringing 100+ new FSIs into a dedicated online and interactive space for sharing knowledge and skills accessed via the Compass. Hosted digitally on the Sustainable Food Systems Network platform (with translation

tools) and promoted on ICLEI’s CityFood website, the CoP provides mutual support for existing FSIs and inspiration for new initiatives and will expand over time.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

CULTIVATE has developed 5 novel tools integrated into the Food Sharing Compass. All move beyond the state of the art:

1. Food Sharing Map: This is the only AI mapping tool for FSIs. It is underpinned by the first ever European Food Sharing Dictionary covering all 24 European languages. The tool currently operates at 70% accuracy rate so human checking is required, but the labour of re-running searches is much reduced. This tool not only maps FSIs it collects vital data to track and monitor changes in FSI populations over time.

2. Food Sharing Calculator: This is the first integrated tool which enables users to map costs and understand SDG-aligned benefits of creating FSIs, as well as establish impacts from FSIs. It collates and builds on fragmented existing knowledge, adding detailed and comparable empirical evidence on sustainability impacts. This tool can be combined with the mapping data to give sustainability contributions from FSIs at the UPU for the first time.

3. Menu of Good Governance: This is the first interactive online repository of regulatory and governance mechanisms that affect FSIs positively. It is searchable by type of FSI activity, by stakeholder and by the type of solution identified. It is flexible, with filters for city size, location and policy level, and expandable to accommodate policy change.

4. Library of Citizen Engagement: This is the only platform for expanding citizen engagement in food sharing. It curates good practice examples and includes new games designed by CULTIVATE focused explicitly on food sharing. It provides granular detail on required commitment and resources needed to make engagement activities work and lists advantages and limitations as well as links to additional resources.

5. Community of Practice: CULTIVATE has established and is expanding the FSI network for sharing expertise. It will be integrated into existing EU platforms and programmes optimising visibility and resources.

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