Public Food Policies Lab brought together more than 100 municipal managers from all over Brazil to discuss the urban food agenda
With the theme “Comida no Centro da Mesa da Agenda Municipal” (Food at the Center of the Table of the Municipal Agenda), representatives from 37 cities, including 32 participating cities and 5 mentoring cities, attended the 3rd edition of LUPPA LAB, which took place in the city of Curitiba from March 19 to 22, for a journey of learning and exchanging experiences on the urban food agenda. The event was organized by the Comida do Amanhã Institute in coordination with ICLEI South America and Curitiba City Hall, through the Municipal Food and Nutrition Security Department (SMSAN).
During this four-day event, the LAB brought together more than 100 people, including municipal managers and representatives of civil society, and discussed, using agile methods and group dynamics, food systems and the climate emergency, the agroecological transition of local production, agroforestry systems, public procurement, intersectoral governance of food policies, specific resources and funding for food systems actions, Food and Nutrition Security (SAN) equipment and the fight against Food and Nutrition Insecurity (INSAN).
At LUPPA, cities find a safe space to share their challenges, and help each other, but also share their good practices and progress. For Edson Cardoso, Barcarena’s Secretary of Agriculture, the great discovery that the LAB brings to the cities is that the SAN challenges are not just in their territories. “They are in various territories throughout Brazil, but we have a common goal, which is to fight hunger and produce ways to guarantee food and nutrition security for people,” he said.
During this 25-hour journey, the participants immersed themselves in content that strengthened their capacities to develop public policies in a participatory, multi-sectoral and integrated way, with systemic thinking and aligned with global challenges and local needs and possibilities.
“Although the main exercises we want to develop in the lab are repeated every year, each edition is a great surprise and we are thrilled to see the sharing that takes place, the bonds that are forged and the alliances that are formed. The Lab serves to accelerate initiatives and ensure that we can identify innovations and inspirations happening throughout Brazil,” said Juliana Tângari, director of Comida do Amanhã.
The mentee cities were also selected during these days. Mentoring sessions are a form of close technical cooperation in which knowledge can be acquired much more deeply, and a more in-depth exchange can take place between mentoring and mentee cities. The mentoring sessions will take place in the cities of Curitiba, São Paulo, Osasco, Belo Horizonte and Recife between April and July 2024.
Sharing both success stories and the challenges faced makes it possible to establish a learning environment that goes beyond the theoretical, with those who have learned through practice. “There is an exchange, a synergy in a horizontal way and not a hierarchy between the cities, there are just different moments that the cities are going through in food security policy,” said João Perez, Executive Secretary for Food and Nutrition Security, Sustainability and Social Innovation of Osasco, LUPPA’s mentoring city.
LUPPA is thus an intense journey, beyond the LAB, intending to put cities at the center of the debate on the food agenda, making them protagonists and supporting them to develop their food strategies in an integrated, intersectoral way, with social participation.
About LUPPA:
LUPPA is a project of the Comida do Amanhã Institute in coordination with ICLEI South America, with the full support of the Ibirapitanga Institute, the Institute for Climate and Society (iCS), the José Luiz Egydio Setúbal Foundation, Porticus, the institutional support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO Brazil), as well as a methodological partnership with Reos Partners Brazil.