Innovating resilient food system prototypes for future cities

The background

Our cities need to become more self-sufficient – we already see how wars and conflicts, climate change, and lack of preparedness negatively affect global supply systems, including food. Continued negative developments risk significantly weakening the food supply chain, which makes Sweden, with its low level of self-sufficiency, very vulnerable.

At the same time, a number of societal challenges are occurring, which also have an impact on society and the food system, such as pandemics, digitalisation, increased inequalities and exclusion. We have a choice – from a systems perspective – to shape the food system of the future in a sustainable direction.

What we did

The future prototype Värningsverket envisions a future where community, trust, and cooperation are the building blocks for a sustainable food system and society. Värningsverket is the fictional authority responsible for Malmö City's new conscription, in which all Malmö residents would spend half of their working hours each week protecting nature, food, or their fellow human beings, building local preparedness and resilience.

The function of the prototype

Värningsverket invites visitors to a conscription recruitment process, where they are first tested to find which area they are best suited to protect for the spring of 2050. Then suitable jobs are proposed based on their characteristics. Visitors can also listen to stories from residents who have worked in each area in previous years, and look at job ads with the requested characteristics and skills.

The process was based on methods from speculative design and started with formulating future scenarios of possible food systems. These were the starting point for workshops with experts on the phases of the food system, where we got hold of even more so-called signals of how the food system may develop. We took note of the signals and explored what would happen if these continued and amplified 25 years into the future. Based on the signals, we created a concept and crafted the future prototype.

We need to change our mental taste buds, look further down the food chain, find new technologies and creative solutions to join forces to create a more resilient and transparent future food system to make more gentle use of the planet's resources. Therefore, we at Malmö Food Council are happy and proud to have been part of the Värningsverket project.

— Linda Dahl, Activity Leader at Malmö Food Council.

The benefits

The future prototype Värningsverket can be experienced at both physical and digital events. For example, the project has its own website (https://vaerningsverket.se) where visitors can experience the prototype digitally and take part in both the thoughts behind it and the results from the dialogue with visitors.

The initiative has given us, together with other committed actors, the opportunity to explore and set the direction for what our future sustainable urban food supply can look like. Hopefully, we will see chefs, schoolchildren and politicians in the fields, as well as more farmers, teachers and researchers in the kitchens. By sharing knowledge, resources and experiences, we build a stronger and more cohesive food community – ready to face the challenges of the future together. The more cooks, the better the soup. Everyone has to be involved in stirring the pot!

— Linda Dahl, Activity Leader at Malmö Food Council.

During the project, a collective skill increase also took place, where methodological knowledge in speculative design and subject knowledge about the sustainable food system of the future were strengthened.