The urgency of the transition is prompting us to anticipate tomorrow’s challenges, and to support creativity and solutions that break with what we know. “Nourrir l’Avenir” supports and accompanies initiatives with a strong social and/or environmental impact, addressing emerging issues and creating new knowledge, services or products for the benefit of as many people as possible. The Foundation encourages projects that open up new avenues, which may be risky and/or break with conventional solutions. These innovations can be organizational, economic, technological or conceptual. They can draw their inspiration from the history of forgotten practices, or from creativity and new opportunities.
My CataLog (Data Food Consortium)
Open Food France
FRANCE
Open Food France supports the performance and scaling up of short distribution channels in France. Producers who sell via several short distribution channels using different platforms will enter and maintain their catalogs in parallel on each platform, as the latter are unable to communicate. As a result, the expected flow data is stored in isolation on each platform, complicating logistical pooling. The Data Food Consortium project aims to simplify management for those selling in short distribution channels, and to facilitate the construction of shared logistics solutions. To this end, Open Food France has built a standard, a common language adopted by the platforms to communicate with each other. The next step is to develop a prototype, “MonCataLog”, an application that enables producers to visualize their “universal catalog” and expected flows across all platforms, and to identify compatible flows within the ecosystem.
Vers une maison des technologies paysannes – Grand-Ouest branch of Atelier Paysan
L’Atelier Paysan
AUVERGNE-RHÔNE-ALPES
The project: to build France’s very first farmers’ technology house on the Trevero farm (Sérent, 56), which will house the Grand Ouest branch of L’Atelier Paysan (R&D and regional training center). This is an exclusively local investment project designed to help local farmers design and disseminate appropriate technologies. Through site-based teaching, it teaches people to do things themselves, and to do them together, in the belief that a farmer who knows how to build or design has an indispensable technological sovereignty.
L’Atelier Paysan is the French-speaking platform for appropriate farming technologies (machines and frames). An adventure supported by a Cooperative of Collective Interest (SCIC Sarl, March 2014) that considers agricultural technologies as commons at the service of an agricultural and food model to be radically renewed. This not-for-profit structure is part of a general interest approach.
www.latelierpaysan.org/Bourgogne-FrancheComte
Pesticides database
Justice Pesticides
INTERNATIONAL
Justice Pesticides makes available to the public all legal cases concerning pesticides worldwide, and contributes to the reflection on a global strategy to obtain redress for the damage caused by these products to humans and natural resources. Its ultimate goal is to ban pesticides that endanger human health and the environment. Justice Pesticides has set up a website which lists all these legal cases and the scientific references used. This provides scientific documentation and jurisprudence that will give victims much more solid means of defending themselves. The site currently contains 225 cases in 13 countries. It features a multi-criteria search engine. It is collaborative, and allows Internet users to enrich the database via a dedicated form. When a case is submitted, it is validated and added to the database.
Developments in the Bell region’s dairy industry: towards local, socially responsible processing
CPIE Belle-Île-en-Mer
BRITTANY
The area concerned is the island of Belle-Île-en-Mer, in the Morbihan department. Covering an area of 84 km², it is home to traditional farming activities, dominated by livestock. The CPIE works in this area to promote environmental education and the development of projects with added environmental and social value. Faced with the milk crisis, societal expectations and the incoherence of the current bovine dairy industry based on exporting milk to the continent, the farmers wanted to launch a local processing project, in partnership with local players, including local authorities. The CPIE, the Chamber of Agriculture and GERDAL are supporting the project to set up a structure to carry out this processing, based on a collaborative economic model (SCIC), enabling farmers to continue their activity, the region to maintain its landscape and biodiversity, and the population to benefit from high-quality local dairy products.
AgroCursor
La Cagnotte des Champs
FRANCE
La Cagnotte des Champs is an association dedicated to making farms increasingly respectful of nature and people. It finances sustainable projects (such as converting to organic farming) for farmers across France. Funds are raised from local individuals (via cash donations from supermarkets within 100km of the project) and local businesses. After two years of activity and more than 20 projects financed, La Cagnotte des Champs would like to set up a tool to measure the environmental impact of the projects supported. This tool will measure 3 main criteria: greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide), soil conservation (farming practices) and biodiversity. Thanks to this tool, it will be possible to communicate to local stakeholders (especially donors, i.e. individuals and companies) the impact of funding on the environment.
Kiosque Paysan
Kiosque Paysan
PAYS DE LA LOIRE
Since the end of 2017, the members of Kiosque Paysan have been working to bring together a multitude of sustainable food players in Loire-Atlantique to work collectively on setting up a shared logistics platform to guarantee the population quality products. In early 2019, the prefiguration association entitled “Kiosque Paysan” was created, bringing together people from the production, craft, processing, distribution, catering and transport trades, as well as consumers and development structures. The main aim is to improve the positive impact of local, sustainable food by coordinating and pooling the efforts of all these players to facilitate sourcing and greatly improve their carbon footprint.
Creation of a logistics distribution platform
GESRA
AUVERGNE-RHÔNE-ALPES
GESRA – Groupement des Épiceries Sociales et Solidaires en Rhône Alpes – Auvergne, offers its 44 member grocery stores support in 4 areas: representation, organization and training, assistance with start-ups, and supply. For several years now, GESRA has been particularly active in the area of supply, offering quality products (organic, fair-trade, local) to the network’s member grocery stores. This innovative offer in the “food aid” sector helps reduce the health risks to which disadvantaged people are more exposed. It is also part of the drive to promote sustainable food sourced from environmentally-friendly agriculture. The project to create a logistics platform focused on the distribution of quality food products completes the range of actions undertaken to defend a genuine right to quality food for all.
MESCLUN
AgroSup Dijon
France
MESCLUN is an ergonomic digital tool, designed to accompany the journey of knowledge in agro-ecological market gardening, based around four interconnected modules:
- Module 1 – Market garden encyclopedia: Learn by consulting the database (illustrations of plants at different stages, glossary, technical itinerary calendars, instructional videos).
- Module 2 – Vegetable farm design tool: acquire knowledge by manipulating the knowledge in the database to design a farm model adapted to your project. Then analyze the simulations produced with training or consulting managers.
- Module 3 – Vegetable farm management tool: test knowledge by implementing the previously designed model, using a vegetable farm management tool.
- Module 4 – Sharing platform to contribute to the database, via a certified mediator: share knowledge by contributing to the database.
www.picleg.fr/Projets/Les-projets-encours/MESCLUN-DURAB
My bottle is called Reviens
Locaverre
AUVERGNE-RHÔNE-ALPES
The aim of the “Ma bouteille s’appelle Reviens” project is to experiment with a new collection and washing service for glass bottles used by local fruit juice, beer and wine producers. Consumers return their bottles to the point of sale after use. It is then collected, washed and sold back to the producer for reuse. Locaverre, the association behind the project, is made up of all the players involved (production, consumption, stores). Objectives:
- Reduce energy costs associated with glass processing;
- Promote local agriculture and short-distance consumption;
- Raising public awareness of waste reduction;
- Create 7 to 10 local jobs that cannot be relocated, including 5 to 7 in integration companies.
After the market study and feasibility study, the aim is to test the implementation of the deposit in a real-life situation with the installation of a bottle washer.
Plant health through microbiodiversity
Chemin Cueillant
OCCITANIE
The aim of the project is to develop a “biophilic” method for the phytosanitary treatment of vines in the Minervois region, open and extensible to other crops and other pedoclimatic contexts. In vineyards more than anywhere else, the majority of practices today still consist of an essentially “biocide” approach aimed at killing pathogens. Chemin cueillant believes that a break is urgent and possible, aimed at boosting micro-biodiversity on the plant to prevent the pathological development of pathogens, in particular downy mildew and powdery mildew, by relying on the resources of the surrounding environment. An experiment was carried out on several plots over two complete production cycles. Its evaluation led to the formalization of an open, extensible and sharable method. This project is led by Chemin Cueillant, a GIEE-approved association of organic farmers in the Minervois region of Languedoc who have been pooling their knowledge and experimentation for many years.
Cooperative grocery store
Soli’Niort
NOUVELLE-AQUITAINE
Soli’Niort is a young association based in Niort which is developing an innovative cooperative grocery store project. Soli’Niort is taking part in the renewal of the Agglomération’s aid schemes, by taking over the activities of two social grocery stores that were in the process of closing. It is also prototyping new, qualitative and resilient food solidarity models to guarantee dignified and sustainable access to quality food.
Initiated in 2018, the project aims to culminate in the inauguration of a large grocery store based on 4 principles:
- solidarity-based pricing for foodstuffs, for the sake of fairness, dignity and autonomy;
- a diversified range of products, to support local agriculture and respect food cultures;
- a participatory governance model to reinvent our democratic processes and reduce operating costs;
- a space for social and cultural exchange, to take advantage of the mix created.
Le Pecnot Lab
Rhizobiòme
OCCITANIE
Rhizobiòme works to preserve our natural heritage by involving local populations. Rhizobiòme is concerned about the health of soils in Occitania, where soil degradation is increasing at a rapid pace. Erosion, loss of fertility, lack of organic matter and problems of water availability are making soils more fragile and affecting their capacity to produce food in the face of climate change. Hence the urgent need to involve farmers in restoring soil health and strengthening soil resilience. The main aim of the project is to make farmers the pilots of their soil’s health, to teach them how to observe soil health parameters using rigorous scientific methods, so that they can make informed choices about which crops to grow, while preserving the soil ecosystem essential to life. The creation of a participatory science laboratory, the Pecnot Lab, is the central lever of the project.
www.rhizobiome.coop/pecnot-lab
EDENN
Synethic
OCCITANIE
EDENN (Espace de Démonstration et d’Expérimentation à la Nature urbaiNe) is an ecopole dedicated to food and urban agriculture in the priority neighborhoods (QPV) of northern Toulouse. EDENN is part of an overall “AGRIPARC” project, winner of the Dessine-moi Toulouse call for projects launched by Toulouse Métropole and managed by social landlord Les Chalets, but remains financially autonomous. The project addresses the following issues:
- How can food supplies be relocated to urban areas (and QPVs)?
- How can we ensure a viable economic model for producers, as well as decent working and living conditions?
Via the following solutions:
- pooling of equipment, distribution, processing, purchasing… for producers;
- a tool for shared governance (producers, consumers…) ;
- social housing solutions for producers ;
- make healthy products accessible to vulnerable groups and give them the know-how to produce part of their own consumption.
Pays Tolosan food eco-pole
Girou Gardens
OCCITANIE
French demand for organic market garden produce is growing faster than supply, encouraging the purchase of imported produce. Les Jardins du Girou, a work-integration farm, is proposing to develop a cooperative food ecosystem in Toulouse, including the development of a very large (15 ha) organic work-integration market-gardening farm and a logistics and marketing system shared by around 50 producers and as many purchasing structures.
www.cocagnehautegaronne.org/nous-contacter/les-jardins-du-girou-3
Coopératives d’Activité et d’Emploi: a promising solution for setting up new farmers?
RENETA
FRANCE
At a time when the number of farmers is falling dramatically, new farmers are finding it hard to set up, often without social security cover and at the cost of high investment. The status of salaried agricultural entrepreneur has recently been tested, and seems to mitigate these risks. The Réseau National des Espaces-Test Agricoles is documenting and capitalizing on these experiments, and making them visible within the farming community.