LUPPA, the world’s largest food public policy lab, opens applications for up to 10 new cities, prioritizing territorial diversity and municipalities in the Legal Amazon.

The Laboratório Urbano de Políticas Públicas Alimentares (LUPPA – Urban Food Public Policy Lab) — a pioneering program that supports Brazilian cities in building fairer, healthier and more sustainable food systems — is now open for applications. Run by Instituto Comida do Amanhã and co-organized with ICLEI Brasil, the program combines technical capacity building, city-to-city mentoring, exchange of good practices and the production of content tailored to the diverse municipal realities of Brazil.

Since its creation in 2021, LUPPA has established itself as the largest community of cities in the world dedicated to this topic, currently bringing together 54 municipalities from 18 states, plus 5 mentor cities, which together represent millions of inhabitants.

LUPPA’s work has been widely recognized internationally, both for its innovative methodology and for its ability to build a support network among Brazilian cities. The program is cited as an example of an urban food public policy lab with an impact on transforming food systems in benchmark reports such as “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2023” (FAO, UNICEF, IFAD, WFP) and “From Plate to Planet” (IPES FOOD, 2023). In 2024, it was highlighted as a national network of cities by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the UN Committee on World Food Security, and more recently. In 2025, it was recognized as a reference experience in urban food policy with an integrated approach in the FAO report “Transforming Food and Agriculture through a Systems Approach,” a document that illustrates the relevance of adopting systemic perspectives to tackle contemporary food challenges.

”When LUPPA was launched, our goals were, first, to get five interested cities – we got 23. Second, we wanted to reach three editions – we are now wrapping up the 4th. Third, to influence the national food agenda for cities – we not only managed to ensure that the issue became established in Brazil, but today we are working on building a global agenda for food systems and cities. Starting LUPPA’s 5th edition is not about growing; it is about raising the quality of what we do and expanding our capacity for impact,” says Juliana Tângari, director of Comida do Amanhã.

The selection values territorial diversity, seeking to include cities from all Brazilian biomes; therefore, for this edition of LUPPA, up to 10 cities will be selected, with 40% of the spots reserved for municipalities in the Legal Amazon.

In addition, in 2024, the program held LUPPA LAB in the Amazon for the first time, in the city of Barcarena (PA), bringing together more than 120 municipal officials and highlighting the development of a joint climate agenda for COP30, which will be hosted in Belém. This experience reinforced LUPPA’s role as a space for innovation and coordination among different sectors, strengthening the food and nutrition security agenda at the local and global scale.

“These moments of exchange that take place during all of LUPPA’s activities and also at LUPPA LAB are motivating and inspiring, because they encourage us to put into practice policies and actions that support food and nutrition security and the promotion of urban agriculture and agroecology,” emphasizes Elinia Marsango, representative of the city of Itajaí (SC).

For Rodrigo Perpétuo, Executive Secretary of ICLEI América do Sul, this new edition “reinforces the commitment to supporting municipalities, especially in the Legal Amazon, so that they transform their food systems in a fair way that is integrated with global agendas, such as COP30.” He adds: “LUPPA has been a catalyst for Brazilian cities to advance innovative food policies, connecting food security, sustainable development and climate action.”

Applications are open until October 20. For more details on the selection process, see the full call for applications at: bit.ly/EditalLUPPA5.

About LUPPA

LUPPA is a collaborative platform and an ongoing learning program to support and enable cities to promote food policies with a systemic approach, in an intersectoral, coherent and participatory way. Conceived by Instituto Comida do Amanhã and co-organized with ICLEI Brasil, it receives full support from Instituto Ibirapitanga, ICS – Instituto Clima e Sociedade, ITAÚSA, Fundação José Luiz Egydio Setúbal and Porticus, as well as institutional support from FAO Brazil – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and methodological partnership from Reos Partners Brasil.