‘Exploring Priorities of a Food Policy Council for Luxembourg’

 

February 2022

Anna Pax and Dr. Rachel Reckinger published a report titled ‘Exploring Priorities of a Food Policy Council for Luxembourg’. This report is based on the results of two surveys with the Luxembourgish population on the topic of the establishment of a Food Policy Council (FPC) in Luxembourg. The first survey was carried out by Dr. Reckinger and Norry Schneider (Centre for Ecological Learning Luxembourg. The Transition Hub), and the second was carried out by the Sustainable Food Practices Team at the University of Luxembourg. The goal of the surveys was to gain empirically documented insight on:

• What Luxembourgish citizens and professionals would like to see a national-scale Food Policy Council accomplish and avoid
• The goals and topics it should address
• Who should be invited to participate
• The knowledge that respondents have about FPCs
• The likelihood of respondents participating
• The pre-existing knowledge about projects and tools in the Luxembourgish foodscape.

Read the full report here

The report presents and analyses the key trends about these interests and concerns that Luxembourgish citizens and food system professionals have concerning the creation of an FPC.

The results of the analysis were encouraging and showed more than anything that the respondents are interested in, and opinionated about, the Luxembourgish food system. They see the creation of an FPC, if set up on specific democratic grounds, as an opportunity for positive developments towards a sustainable and equitable food system transition.

As such, the opportunity should be seized, to build multi-stakeholder-led effective food policies; cooperatively shorten sustainable supply circuits; and encourage innovation, diversification, and collective learning. Luxembourg can use its political and economic international weight to push best practices for food sovereignty forward.

Food and incidentally climate, sovereignty can only be achieved by uniting governmental action, business innovations and civil society initiatives into collective action, underpinned by systemic ethics. For this, Food Policy Councils, from local levels to national ones and even an EU one, are key tools for democratic and efficient food system transformation.

To read more about Sustainable Food Practices’ involvement with the Food Policy Council click here.

The surveys and the report were partially funded by the Ouevre Nationale de Secours Grand-Duchesse Charlotte, and the Conseil Supérieur pour un Développement Durable. The first survey was conceived and conducted by Norry Schneider (Centre for Ecological Learning Luxembourg. The Transition Hub) and Dr. Rachel Reckinger (University of Luxembourg).

100,7 “Biotop”

 

26th October 2021, 11:10

100,7 Radio

Dr. Rachel Reckinger gave an interview for 100,7 Radio, where she spoke about the interplay of regionality and seasonality, and more specifically about seasonal food in winter. She describes how choosing seasonal foods requires preexisting knowledge, and often corresponds more to a moral imperative than a hedonic motivation. Listen to the short program here.

woxx: “Ernährungssouveränität: Katzentisch statt Mitbestimmung”

 

30th September 2021

Dr. Rachel Reckinger was interviewed for woxx concerning the ongoing developments of a Food Policy Council in Luxembourg. In the interview she discussed the Bill of Law that has been put forward regarding the creation of Food Policy for Luxembourg including the creation of a Food Policy Council.

To access the full article click here

To read more about the Food Policy Council click here

woxx: “Ernährungssouveränität: Transformation des Ernährungssystems”

 

12th August 2021

Dr. Rachel Reckinger gave an interview for woxx newspaper on the topic of food sovereignty and food system transformation. In the interview she discusses Food Policy Councils and the role that they can have in the transitions towards these two goals, as well as their usual structure and goals, and their adaptability to the national scale in Luxembourg.

Access the article here (German)

Dr. Rachel Reckinger (University of Luxembourg) and Norry Schneider (Centre for Ecological Learning Luxembourg – CELL) have been instrumental in the scoping out of a nation-wide, participative, Food Policy Council (FPC) for Luxembourg. The idea behind the world’s first national scale FPC is to unite stakeholders from three fields of the food system, with each of them forming on third of FPC members: Production, Transformation and Retail; Policy and Administration; Research and Civil Society. Uniting all stakeholders within the food system will bring about innovation through constructive debates and teamwork and create a more socially and environmentally just, economically sound, high quality local food system.

Read more about the Food Policy Council for Luxembourg

woxx: “Ernährungssouveränität: Zweckentfremdeter Rat”

 

5th August 2021

Dr. Rachel Reckinger was interviewed for woxx newspaper, along with Norry Schneider from CELL (Centre for Ecological Learning Luxembourg), concerning the ongoing development of the Food Policy Council (FPC) for Luxembourg. To read the article and learn about the current status of development of the national scale FPC click below.

Access the article here (German)

To read more about the Food Policy Council click here

Le Quotidien: “Conseils de politique alimentaire : un rôle-clé dans la démocratie”

 

3rd August 2021

Dr. Rachel Reckinger was interviewed for Le Quotidien newspaper, along with Norry Schneider from CELL (Centre for Ecological Learning Luxembourg), concerning the ongoing development of the Food Policy Council (FPC) for Luxembourg. The article is in two parts online:

“Conseils de politique alimentaire : un rôle-clé dans la démocratie” (Dr. Rachel Reckinger)

“La démocratie alimentaire est en danger” (Norry Schneider)

To read more about the Food Policy Council click here

INFINO Conference: ‘How to build a resilient and sustainable food system?’

 

Tuesday 9 March 2021, 17.30-19.30

Dr. Rachel Reckinger participated in the INFINO (Initiativ fir Nohaltegkeet – Initiative for sustainable development) online conference: Towards a resilient and sustainable food system. The event was in collaboration with the University of Luxembourg and the Council for Sustainable Development (Nohaltegkeetsrot) with the support of the Œuvre Nationale de Secours Grande-Duchesse Charlotte. The event was moderated by Norry Schneider from CELL, the Centre for Ecological Learning Luxembourg, who is also an INFINO board member.

To watch Reckinger’s presentation, and the full conference, visit the INFINO website or our designated Food Policy Council page.

The objective of the conference was to bring together different actors of the food system and to explore paths for a long-term strategy on the country’s food resilience, while trying to respond to the current challenges at the territorial level.

Dr. Reckinger presented pathways for a sustainable food system transition with particular focus on the collaborative tool of a Food Policy Council. She also presented the first empirical results of a survey regarding such a Food Policy Council for Luxembourg. Following the presentation of these results, a second survey has been published. You can take the survey here in ENGLISH / FRENCH / GERMAN (deadline September 30th 2021).

Speakers:

Nick Jacobs, Director of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food): ‘Towards a Common Food Policy for the European Union’

Marc Kreis, adviser on agricultural, veterinary, phytosanitary and fisheries policy at the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union: Presentation of the European ‘From Farm to Fork Strategy’

Rachel Reckinger, food sociologist at the University of Luxembourg, head of the research project Sustainable Food Practices and member of the High Council for Sustainable Development: ‘How to build a resilient and sustainable food system?’

Roundtable

Following the presentations by the three speakers there will be a roundtable discussion with speakers from agriculture, consumer protection, distribution and civil society: Raymond Weber (President of SOS Faim Luxembourg), Patrick Kolbusch (Director of Biogros) Jeannette Muller (Counsellor at the Ministry of Consumer Protection), Pierre Treinen (Director of the Rural Economy Service at the Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Rural Development)

Conference: “Towards a Common Food Policy in Europe?”

 

Wednesday 8th May 2019

Dr. Rachel Reckinger attended the interactive conference ‘Towards a Common Food Policy in Europe?’ (‘Vers une politique alimentaire commune en Europe’) organised by Slow Food Luxembourg and Meng Landwirtschaft. The event follows the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems’ (iPES) call for a EU level Common Food Policy with a focus on sustainability. This event overlaps with the work that Dr. Rachel Reckinger is currently doing, co-founding Luxembourg’s national Food Policy Council – the first of its kind at a national level.

Following the event, IPES published their report Towards a Common Food Policy

Keyword – Food Democracy

 

July 2020

Dr. Rachel Reckinger and Norry Schneider co-authored an article for Forum, discussing Food Policy Councils, which have become increasingly popular in European cities and certain regions over the past decade. More specifically Reckinger and Schneider (from CELL, the Center for Ecological Learning Luxembourg) have initiated the creating of the first food policy council at a national level, in Luxembourg.

The article, written in German, can be found here

The article discusses how Food Policy Councils function, both legally and logistically, and how they create dialogue between politics, administration, producers, distributors, and consumers, with the goal of strengthening regional food supply. Specifically, a national food policy council would aim to be:

• A platform on which the local actors in food supply can voice their interests;
• A participatory think tank with all affected actors in the food system, including administration and politics;
• An initiator of developments in the food system with the goal of optimising food supply.

Read more on the topic here

A Food Policy Council for Luxembourg!

 

22nd May 2019

Dr. Rachel Reckinger and Norry Schneider from CELL (Center for Ecological Learning Luxembourg. The Transition Hub) initiated the co-creation a transformative tool for political commitment, together with pertinent Ministries: a Food Policy Council for the whole of Luxembourg.

The basic idea behind the first Food Policy Council at national level is to unite stakeholders from three fields of the food system, each of them forming one third of members:

• Production, Transformation & Retail
• Policy & Administration
• Research & Civil Society.

Individual representatives of these three groups will not primarily be selected according to proportional weight of their host institution or company, but according to their specific willingness and creativity to debate constructively and to co-create, as a team, a more socially and environmentally just, while economically sound, qualitative and local food system.

Beside ongoing meetings and discussions with concerned Ministries, a study and field trip to the Food Policy Councils of Cologne and Bonn was organised with interested actors during autumn 2019.

Read more about Food Policy Councils here