Recipe for Resilience: For a sustainable agri-food sector in South Holland

Recipe for Resilience: For a sustainable agri-food sector in South Holland
Annam Irfan
Britt Hoornaert
Esmee Kuit
Oliwia Jackowska
Patrick Maurer


Tutors: Daniele Cannatella, Nikos Katsikis, Remon Rooij

Key words: resilience, knowledge, actor involvement, circular system, agri-food sector

Our modern food structure is unsustainable and fragile. Changes like climate crises, rising food demand, biodiversity loss, and the technological revolution will radicalize how and what we eat and produce. Whichever changes will happen, they will have an effect on the food system. In South Holland, this will happen with the transition to a circular economy. In order to deal with the unpredictability of these changes, this project proposes to create a resilient system. The main question that will be answered is ‘How can resilient food systems contribute to a circular agri-food sector in South Holland?’. In this context, resilience is the ability to ensure the provision of system functions in the face of increasingly complex and accumulating shocks and stresses.

Through capacities of robustness, adaptability, and transformability a just transformation to the circular food economy can be ensured. The strategy ‘Recipe for Resilience’ derives from this definition. Based on a network of a mix of three types of hubs, the strategy calls for more widespread and integrated distribution of knowledge about food and the food system. These hubs are the Seeds, where knowledge and food produce germinates, the Melting Pot, common interacting ground for all actors, and the Mixers, the in-between spaces that are not transparent. Together, they supply a network facilitating producers, distributors, and consumers. Thanks to this high-functioning network of knowledge, the main goals of the strategy can be achieved.

During and after implementation, there will be high stakeholder engagement through all layers of society, local food cycles with feedback loops to distribution centers and farmers, and the knowledge about it will be widespread throughout the South Holland population. The constant exchange of expertise will ensure feedback loops throughout all layers of the knowledge production. Through this constant adaptation and transformation, a resilient system can be achieved.

There are a few recommendations:

• There should be extensive research into potential locations before placing a hub. This strategy cannot function as a blueprint because of the varied landscape;

• It is important to look closely at relations between economies;

• This project focuses mostly on knowledge. It is key for the transition to also look at flows in the system;

• There should be a large focus on the value of both, theoretical and practical knowledge to include all actors.

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