Almere, Flevo Campus and the Next Agri Project

Almere is one of the 3 cities involved in the Next-Agri Urbact project.

It's the second largest city in the Amsterdam metropolitan area and it is situated in the province of Flevoland and is built on reclaimed land from the sea. Almere lies 2-5 m below sea level.

One of the most interesting recent projects of the city is the creation of Flevo Campus: a scientific hotspot for innovations in terms of food and urbanization issues for the future. The main idea is to rethink the food system, promoting local fresh food and making it more accessible in the city.

On the 21st and 22nd September 2021, Almere has hosted the first NextAgri Urbact Transnational meeting promoted by city partners, in an online format, due to the restrictions given for Covid prevention.

It has been a great chance to meet all partner but most of all to know how Flevo Campus works and some of the experiences and startups that are already working on the site.

The first day meeting coordinated by Janno Lanjouw from Flevo Campus started with an inspiring video from Ms. Roelie Bosch, Almere responsible for the food strategy. She stressed the importance of a fruitful cooperation and engagement on food sustainability and her intervention was followed by the director of Flevo Campus Lenno Munnikes. The first part of this presentation was the description of The Village: a base of operations for food start ups and starting food entrepreneurs.

The second part was related to the most innovative idea that is The Supermarket of the Future that involves farmers, chefs, media, consumers and supermarket managers in a new way of producing and consuming food.

The chef Sharon de Miranda presented how peculiar is her kitchen only plant based, according to the eat lancet diet, in order to be more sustainable and also to introduce new tastes and recipes. Ms. de Miranda also promotes a small newspaper in her restaurant to make her clients more aware on sustainable aspects.

Last but not least, Almere presented the future event Floriade, the big fair that will host many initiatives also related to food. The program will soon be online.

The information on the activities at Flevo Campus are available here: FLEVO CAMPUS

Here a short video on the Campus project

Why is so important for Almere being part of this project?

Almere will take this chance to share innovative practices in the field of food policy and to learn how to link the food policy with the urban planning, how to create viable financial business models for the local food economy, together with the engagement of consumers and the fight against obesity and a general unhealthy food environment.

Here the entire video of the streaming presentation of the meeting: Urbact Next Agri meeting

More is yet to come.