How to Feed the City with Regional Production?

How to increase regional food production and consumption for and in cities? That was the guiding question for the panel discussion with Stephanie Wunder, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, Wolfram Günther, Saxon Minister of Agriculture, Valentin Thurn, film director and chairman of the Cologne Food Policy Council and Jörg Naumann, farmer and representative of the alliance "Land schafft Verbindung" on 9 September 2020 at the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden.

In times of multiple crises, food security and how food is produced is moving into the focus of our attention: The stable supply of globally traded food, which has often been taken for granted until now, is increasingly being questioned, and more and more people are looking for new strategies for food security. Local and regional supply seems to be an attractive solution: proximity to production increases transparency and trust, short transport routes are environmentally friendly, and the demand for regional products was steeply increasing in many areas during the COVID 19 pandemic. At the same time, farmers complain about distorted perceptions and poor framework conditions for agricultural production in this country.

On the occasion of the special exhibition "Future Food. Food for the World of Tomorrow" (2020-2021 at the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden), the panel discussion examined the relationship between the city and its environment using the example of nutrition and food supply: How regional is the current supply of food in our cities? Does the regionalization of food production and consumption make sense at all? How fair is the relationship between the consuming city and the producing hinterland? How can sustainable municipal nutrition strategies be designed that benefit both sides?

The panel discussion took place within the framework of the Dresden event series "Zurück oder Zukunft? Wie wir in Dresden leben wollen." The recording of the event is available online.