The Metropolitan City of Bologna hosted last 4th July a Steering Committee Meeting of the Interreg MED project MADRE.

The focus was placed on the presentation and discussion of the conclusions of the Metropolitan Working Groups (MWG) hold in each project area (Thessaloniki, Tirana, Bologna, Marseille, Montpellier and Barcelona) with regard to the driving forces and obstacles for urban and peri-urban agriculture. The process started now to identify and describe best practices to address those obstacles through innovation in technical, social, organisational and institutional domains.

The meeting closed with visit to Le Serre Dei Giardini Margherita: locally grown vegetables, a community garden and an organic bistro; an example of what urban agriculture can achieve.

All these outputs will feed the discussions at a transnational level, starting next fall, which will conduct to the definition of political recommendations for the Euro-Med region. MedCities will organise the first Transnational Working Group (TWG) – focusing on social inclusion – end October in Barcelona in the framework of “L’Aplec” of urban agriculture.

MADRE (Metropolitan Agriculture for Developing an Innovative, Sustainable and Responsible Economy) is an Interreg MED Modular project on Capitalisation that focuses on the priority axis 1 “Promoting Mediterranean innovation capacities to develop smart and sustainable growth”. Aiming at fostering a change process in the metropolitan food supply model, the project capitalizes on the wide set of academic knowledge, pilot actions and policies, networks and transnational cooperation in order to allow Metropolitan Peri-urban Agriculture (MPA) reaching a critical level in the MED area.

More info in the Press Release

MADRE_brochure (FR)

MADRE_brochure (EN)