As of September 1st, 2025, and for a duration of 2 years, we will be collaborating with designers, researchers and SME companies in an experiment to stimulate food system transitions. Our food system is functioning very badly in many places, at the consequence of nature, food species and humans. Our current food system is not sustainable (we deplete our resources and our lands), not healthy (we have more obese people in the world than not), not resistant (we lose climate and pest-resistant species through monocultures across all types of foods). And then there are problems with fairness, equality, availability and affordability.
In Grassroots, we will conduct an economic experiment. If the current economical logics brought us in this situation, we must turn to alternative logics to get us out. Minimum Viable Ecosystems (MVE) are groups of actors that are committed to materializing a value proposition at the ecosystem level. Not the individual interest is served through collaboration, but a joint interest. If done well, this allows for collaborations that serves each actor in the group, not through direct investments or commercial relationships, but through producing value that serves the ecosystem as a whole. Just like nature is organized.
Together with our partners (WUR, RSM, EastAgency, DDF and ScaleUp Practitioners) and an expanding group of actors we will build four MVEs from the ground up.
● Contributing to a climate-resilient food production network is one of them.
● Saving food waste from becoming food loss is another.
● Contributing to finding a balance in the chain of proteins is a third.
● And building healthy food landscapes around cities is the fourth.
It will be our role to lead the development of the MVEs, as workpackage leader and member of the core team. Through our dedicated project page and at times on stages, we will share how the journey evolves, and how the MVEs are coming about and what role art-driven innovation and creatives can have in this. We re grateful to the trust given by the ClickNL program to support this project.
