What is Eating City?
"The city eats. It eats food, but also it consumes the land needed to produce it. The flows created by an urban settlement in relation to its food requirements are very intense, important and of course inevitable Sustainability regards all aspects ranging from production, processing, distribution and logistics. It is not merely a quantitative aspect: lets think about CO2 emissions; we have access to foods that originate thousands of miles away. The valorization of local production (the concept of 9economy. This, however, also leads to a reduction of the variety and, to some extent, the culture of food. An irreconcilable contradiction...?"
Eating City is a multi-year program of activities established by the Consortium Risteco Terre Citoyenne, co-funded by the CLM foundation for Human Progress in Paris, and locally, for each of the different editions, by other public and private institutions. The aim of the program created in 2010, is to create opportunities of international meeting, in Europe, China, USA and Africa, to elaborate several case studies and a series of publications with concrete proposals on the definition of urban food policies, useful for public and private decision makers working
upstream and downstream of the food chain and also for food industry and food service operators and buyers.
Eating City aims to give life to ideas, to stimulate intellectual dialogue and to foster a long term vision of public & and private decision makers on the future of sustainable urban food supply chains worldwide. Action-oriented, Eating city also evidences good practices and constructive propositions to shift the paradigm : the ideal place where food, health, environment, culture and social values meet the economy.
Why a summer campus?
Implementing food sustainability means a deep conversion of the whole food supply chain, largely based on replacing industrialized & standardized products by human know-how. Consequently, training is one of the main tools promoted by the participants of all Eating City workshops so far. Interestingly, many cooks working in public food service have the feeling that sustainability should be able to stimulate new professional vocations for what has been for too long a sidelined, second choice job; The same vision should apply to farmers as well, especially because development of local food supply chains cannot occur unless more young people
decide to work as farmers.
For this reason Eating City has decided to organize a summer campus open to young people from all over Europe. We would like to invite people from every EU member state who are interested in promoting sustainable food. We include here chefs in private restaurants and public service farmers, retailers, wholesalers and people from civil society working to encourage the use of organic
food. Our aim is to bring about a new vision of sustainable food systems taking into account social, cultural and environmental values. We want to create a new generation of future decision makers.
How the campus will be organized?
This campus will take place in France, from July 28th to August 3rd 2013,
Venue is the inspiring location of la Bergerie de Villarceaux in the regional natural park of Vexin, 70 km from Paris. This is a 600ha rural property, including an organic farm, fully dedicated to sustainable development. The Foundation Charles Leopold Mayer, Eating City supporter and partner since the very beginning, has created La Bergerie where several partners work together create the ideal conditions to welcome the Eating city campus. Association décodéveloppement de Villarceaux develops sustainability thinking with regard to rural development. Association Ecosite de Villarceaux manages hosting facilities and organizes conference facilities on the site; EARL du chemin neuf runs a 300ha organic integrated crop-livestock farm, which will provide our meals. Twenty eight young people male and female, aged 30 or younger, from the 27 EU state members will be invited to share this adventure.
They will get involved in a series of activities aiming at raising mutual knowledge of food, farming and cooking. The program will have a lot of space for discussion and networking. The program will commence on the evening of Sunday July 28th with the welcome of participants and delegates will depart on Saturday August 3rd.
Courses will be given by European experts on sustainable food working in universities, companies, local authorities and civil society. Eight half-day sessions will be on different themes ranging from: rural development, organic agriculture, renewable energy, environmental impacts, public procurement, public food service and catering and urban planning. There will be a programme of recreational activities and discussions during the evenings.
The official language will be English.
How to participate ?
Interested people should fill the letter of motivation ( download here) and send to Isabelle Lacourt no later than June 15th 2013 at the following address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at the email of our partners and media partners. This letter must include a brief personal presentation describing your actual engagement with sustainable food and your reasons for wishing to attend the Eating City summer campus. Twenty grants up to 350 to reimburse travel expenses are available, and will be allocated to the first twenty people to request places at the Summer Campus. Accommodation and food are free.
Do not delay to send your letter of motivation as soon as possible!
By June 30th the complete program of the summer campus will be published on the website. Participants can begin to contact each other through the Summer Campus facebook page which will be launched on June 30th .