Territori Horta, the path to sustainable food in Valencia

Territori Horta is the third stage of Valencia’s Territorialised Food System (SAT) project, an initiative that responds to the commitment of the Valencia City Council after the signing of the Milan Pact. Beneficiary of the SAT 2020 call, during the last two years the project has achieved the consolidation and scaling of food policies for the city and expanding its scope to the metropolitan territory. Pedro Lloret, research and territorial dynamization technician at CERAI, one of the agents involved in this alliance, tells us about the most important achievements achieved in recent years.

Territori Horta has managed to develop a territorialised food strategy by implementing municipal and supra-municipal measures in the territory of the Huerta de Valencia. With this, it has been possible to guarantee the follow-up of the same by providing Food Councils and spaces for interdepartmental coordination within the City Council of Valencia. Since then, it has been possible to consolidate some work dynamics within the Municipal Food Council with an increasingly intense activity of its own working groups. Territori Horta aspires to consolidate the set of decision-making, coordination and execution spaces of the different measures that have been established in the territories involved. However, it is still necessary to provide the Consell de l’Horta with more resources for its own management so that the Agricultural Development Plan becomes effective.

How did you find out about the Territorialised Food Systems call and why did you decide to present the Territori Horta project?

We already knew the Foundation, at least some of the entities that make up the project. Thinking about public-social collaboration projects, the SAT call has different advantages. Firstly, from the outset, it facilitates in terms of administrative management what is very complicated or tedious for local entities through other channels, that is, looking for formal fittings to develop projects between administrations and civil society that have a certain trajectory. Secondly, Valencia and its regions, from different local and supralocal administrations, have made a strong commitment to promoting food policies and governance systems that accompany their definition, implementation and monitoring. The truth is that this political commitment to the creation of governance structures and action plans subsequently requires management and coordination teams. In the case of Valencia, through the SAT, from the social entities we have been able to provide this technical support, especially at the beginning of the processes or projects linked to Territori Horta. Finally, one of the advantages of this call is its understanding of how the “processes” or “projects that seek to activate public policy processes” are alive, uncertain and depend on many variables that sometimes escape the control of the entities that promote them. This is key, we have to be rigorous and comply, but in these projects the emphasis is placed on the coherence of the process, on its participatory nature and on their evaluation. If the expected results are not reached, know why, explain it and share it.

Territori Horta is the third phase of the Territorialised Food System (SAT) project in Valencia, why promote the SAT in Valencia and what has been its development up to that point?

In the case of Valencia, the collaboration with the Foundation and the commitment to the SATS is based on the signing of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. Let’s say that the commitment acquired by the City Council offers a first, very broad framework to begin the path of promoting actions in the field of local agri-food policies. But the most important thing is that Valencia came from a history of struggles for territory, of very important defence of l’Horta de València that had generated, among other things, a citizen demand on the need to have a municipal area that tried to develop local policies that favoured a living and productive agricultural territory. To this is also added a network of entities, networks of producers, collectives, etc… who demanded another food model in accordance with an agroecological approach and for Food Sovereignty. These two ingredients are key when it comes to understanding the Valencia City Council’s commitment to the promotion of local agri-food policies with a proximity, local and sustainability approach. Another thing is that the demands and expectations of these social energies have been fulfilled and that “the transfer” of all the burden of transformation that agroecology, food sovereignty and understanding the territory in a different way entails has crystallized in the administration. This goes far beyond a specific project of public-social collaboration.

As for the development of the project, the phases have been gradual. In the first place, the commitment of the City Council together with a driving group of entities linked to food sovereignty, agroecology and sustainable food was to try to generate a space for local food governance and a common framework for work, which was translated into the Agri-food Strategy of Valencia. In the following years, the objective has focused on consolidating the space of the Municipal Food Council. In the three years of the tour, six working groups have been opened with different topics (from local public procurement to traditional fishing, including food waste). In the third phase, with a trajectory also of learning, the Consell de l’Horta is incorporated, with the aim, among other things, of scaling up those policies that, due to their scope, have coherence that are developed at the regional level, not so much at the municipal level, the appropriate instrument being the Consell de l’Horta. Such as tools that facilitate access to land, the brand of the Huerta’s product, or support for the productive sector to access the collective catering channel.

What has it meant to have been beneficiaries of the SAT 2020 call for Territori Horta? How has this phase developed so far?

It has made it possible to consolidate its own work dynamic within the Municipal Food Council with an increasingly intense activity of its working groups and with the guarantees that once the project does not technically reinforce its operation, this structure will continue to function. At least, in terms of its work dynamics, proposal and monitoring of agri-food policies. More and more entities are becoming more active. In the end, these governance spaces work if there are working groups with the desire to do things, to propose and implement, and also to demand. Then, on the other hand, the administration has to comply.

Secondly, the project has supported the development of Ecotira, to work with the productive sector that has been interested in forms of articulation that facilitate access to the collective catering channel in better conditions. The project has made it possible to address the field of public procurement in a comprehensive way. Working with producers, developing training with companies and explaining the necessary commitment to seasonal menus and, finally, raising awareness in the educational community. In any case, the changes that may occur in terms of public procurement at the supra-regional level, without a doubt, are largely thanks to the Escoles qu’Alimenten Platform, which is doing a great job. From Territori Horta it has been possible to join this process of political advocacy and generation of technical proposals.

One of the starting points of Territori Horta was to scale the urban experience to the metropolitan territory of the Huerta de Valencia, what have been the mechanisms for this leap and the coordination with the different administrations involved in public food policies?

Technical coordination between the Delegation of Agriculture, Sustainable Food and Orchard and the Consell de l’Horta has been reinforced. There has been and continues to be coordination and joint work. Also, a transfer work has been done on those policies or actions that began to be experimented with at the municipal level but that must have a metropolitan or regional scope. On the one hand, from the contact between technical teams from both administrations, but also by developing training courses for technicians from the city council of the regions of l’Horta, in collaboration with the Municipis project in Saó. Beyond the contributions of the Territori Horta project in facilitating coordination between scales of action, contributing from a technical point of view and accompanying the initial development of the Consell de l’Horta, it is still necessary to provide the Consell de l’Horta with more resources for its own management. The latter is a necessary starting condition for the Agrarian Development Plan to become effective.

The spaces of governance and the involvement of citizens in the design of public food policies to be implemented in both urban and metropolitan areas is the backbone of your initiative. How have these governance bodies materialized and what has been achieved with them?

In the case of the Municipal Food Council, which has a longer history, its operation is structured on three levels. Two governing bodies, the Plenary and the Permanent Commission. The first is where all CALM member entities meet, at least once a year. The second is in charge of monitoring the activity of the Food Council and transferring its activity, which is basically concentrated in its working groups. It is in the working groups, which are more open and less formalized, where the most interesting and substantial work of co-creation of proposals, projects or follow-up takes place.

Specifically, for example, the work carried out by the Public Procurement Group when it comes to influencing the change of contracting criteria in municipal school canteens, introducing social and environmental criteria. Or the work carried out by the Food Waste Group (Aprofita València), which has just developed a very ambitious proposal to improve the issue of food waste in Mercavalència.

What are the main achievements or impact of Territori Horta during the last two years? What is Territori Horta’s future prospect?

Little by little, the entities that participate in CALM recognize this space as a useful tool to propose actions, make political advocacy and follow up on food policies that are promoted by the administration or with the administration. These years have also been a path of formation between very different entities. A common vision is coming together in action around the need for healthy, sustainable and fair food to go hand in hand. And that to talk about food you have to think in terms of the food system, not in a sectoral way. That is why it is possible that in CALM there are such diverse projects to promote public procurement, work on food waste, training programs on food in neighborhoods or promote access for vulnerable groups to fresh and local food or influence the implementation of direct sales markets and cooperative collection centers that facilitate the interested producer access to the collective catering channel.

An inspiring message for initiatives that are thinking of applying for the SAT 2022 call?

Be encouraged, this can be a good opportunity to give a boost to the ideas that they collectively want to put into action, and that the more projects there are to promote fair and sustainable food systems, the better.

Photo credits: Territori Horta