PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The commitment of the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz to changing its food system began with its declaration as European Green Capital in 2012. At that time, it triggered a discussion among local agents about the situation of agriculture in the Llanada Alava and its lack of relationship with the municipal food supply model. This movement crystallised in a manifesto for a more sustainable agrifood system that was adopted in 2004 as an institutional objective by the City Council, from which the work of the Vitoria-Gasteiz Agrifood Strategy began.
In this context, in 2021 the Environmental Studies Centre of the Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council (CEA) contracted the drafting of a study aimed at determining, quantitatively, the state of this issue. The City Food Flow Analysis Vitoria-Gasteiz (CFFA) study was designed to answer the question of what proportion of the fresh food products consumed in the city have a local origin (i.e. those produced in the province of Alava). The results of the study were conclusive: only 1.5% of fresh products were of local origin.
OBJECTIVES
The CROPS4LIFE project aims to transform the model of society in Vitoria-Gasteiz by achieving a sustainable and decarbonised food system. The facilitation of short circuits based on the commercialisation of local food produced with low environmental impact solutions seeks both market equity (provision of healthy, sustainable produce at an adequate price) and the reduction of GHG emissions and, therefore, the minimisation of the environmental and climate footprint of the system as a whole. Specific project objectives:
- To encourage behavioural change in the population's food purchasing habits by quantifying the productive and environmental profile of the product and its incorporation as a purchasing decision factor (modification of the food choice environment).
- Demonstrate the economic feasibility of a short digitalised production-commercialisation channel through the articulation of a local agrifood innovation niche capable of operating digitalised production and commercialisation within the biophysical limits of the planet.
- Ensure the social viability of short production-marketing cycles by using a framework of innovation and digitalisation to attract new social actors to regenerative agriculture, and to encourage the replication and dissemination of their impacts by creating formulas for cooperation with conventional farmers.
- To promote the operational, administrative and legal viability of the sustainable transition of the agrifood system in Vitoria-Gasteiz through the implementation of a digital adaptive governance model.
RESULTS
- 10% increase in the consumption of fresh local food in the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz by the end of the project.
- Substantial qualitative modification of the food choice environment by introducing a minimum of three events and five environmental variables during the production cycle in reference to the thresholds of safe use of resources within planetary limits.
- Modification of the food choice environment through direct appeal to the consequences of individual food purchasing actions, by reflecting their impact on the social metric of decarbonisation.
- Modification of the food choice environment by means of a positive identity appeal to improve the position of the historical territory of Alava with respect to the indicators of the planetary biophysical limits.
- Increase of 22 ha of regenerative agriculture by the end of the project (30 ha five years later).
- Diversification of production. Inclusion of up to five different production systems in regenerative agriculture within the same farm (bio-intensive horticulture, extensive horticulture, extensive crops, diversified livestock and forestry management).
- Increase in quantifiable biodiversity indices over the course of the project implementation. Increase in the number of species from one to 20.
- Reduction of soil erosion in an area of 0.3 km2.
- 45% reduction in energy consumption in the project area.
- 41% reduction in CO2 emissions in the project area.
- 4% increase in CO2 sequestration by the end of the project in the project area.
- 100% reduction of pesticides in the project area.
- 100% reduction of nitrogen use in fertilisation practices by the end of the project in the project area.
- 100% reduction of phosphorus use in fertilisation practices by the end of the project in the project area.
- 30 local producers integrated in the marketing model of the Km.0 digital food aggregator (ADA 0) by the end of the project.
- Incorporation of at least 20 producers into the agricultural activity of the area around the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz and, in particular, into scaling up the self-sufficient element of the scheme promoted by CROPS4LIFE.
- 15 new ventures in the agricultural sector, whether individual or cooperative.
- Four workshops to condense the knowledge generated by the project for its projection in the regulatory framework.
- Five differentiated areas of competence represented in the development of a set of recommendations for projection on a potential proximity policy package.
