Joint Office for Sustainable Food
This is an innovative space of governance that promotes and encourages coordinated actions among public administrations in different areas with the goal of working towards a more sustainable food model.
Spearheaded by Barcelona City Council, the Government of Catalonia (Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fishing and Food, DARPA), the public company Prodeca and the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB), the Joint Office for Sustainable Food (OCAS) launched operations in 2023 to generate synergies among the public administrations' food strategies Barcelona Healthy and sustainable Food Strategy 2030, the Food Strategy of Catalonia (DACCO, the Food Charter of the Metropolitan Region and the food mission of the Barcelona Tomorrow Metropolitan Commitment (PEMB), and to promote coordinated actions in everything aimed at transforming the food system towards more sustainable models, with the primary focus on promoting urban-rural ties.
This body aims to promote connections, joint projects and cross-cutting processes as an innovative tool of governance stemming the drive to join forces on behalf of a change in the food model.
The main goals of the Technnical Office are to:
- Articulate and generate synergies among the sustainable food strategies of the public administrations that are part of the Office (Barcelona City Council, Government of Catalonia, Prodeca and Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan, PEMB).
- Promote sustainable food projects in the different strategies, with a focus on urban-rural ties.
- Share the different public administrations’ goals, resources, knowledge and agendas to boost their impact on a municipal, metropolitan and country scale in alliance with the rest of Catalonia.
Rural-urban links
This office’s sphere of action is focused on Barcelona and its metropolitan area, given their high levels of food consumption, although it also works to generate as many synergies and alliances with the other regions of Catalonia as possible.
The links between the urban and rural worlds are essential in transforming the food system: if the population that consumes food is unaware of the reality of food production and farmers’ livelihoods, it will be more difficult for them to consume food responsibly and sustainably and to eat a healthy diet. If we don’t encourage the links of production, sale and distribution networks through channels that bring farmers in closer touch with consumers, a sustainable food model will be neither possible nor feasible.
From the start, the OCAS has proven itself to be an effective bridge to share interests and seek partnerships among the different stakeholders involved in transforming the food system. Overall, this has highlighted the mission at the heart of the work done by OCAS: to promote urban-rural links as a core feature in the transformation of the food system.
Areas of action
Fostering the connections and commitments between the urban and rural worlds via food:
- Promoting a change of food culture and habits by engaging the urban world with the reality of the rural world and food production.
- Promoting the agrifood chain to foster the sale and consumption of sustainable goods from small and medium-sized farmers among all citizens.
Promoting sustainable food across society:
- Supporting the introduction of local and sustainable criteria in public food procurement.
- Transferring knowledge.
Generating inter-administrative connections by promoting shared work or governance spaces:
- Metropolitan Region Food Charter (CARM).
- Technical secretariat of the working groups of the City Agreement of the Healthy and Sustainable Food Strategy Barcelona 2030.
Communication service: