How can we make our food systems more sustainable and resilient and how can we feed growing cities with fewer resources? That was the question of this year’s UrbanFarm 2021 challenge. Following the trend set by the previous editions, the event promoted the development of projects in the area of local food production coupled with the international exchange of ideas, curiosity and creativity. It was organised by the University of Bologna and supported by FoodE .
The contest brought together students from across the world to develop innovative urban agriculture systems for the European cities of Bologna, Naples and Romainville. Despite the event being online due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, more than 200 participants closely followed the Grand Finale on 9 June.
After a morning full of excitement and concentration, the ideas of the teams of Soul Farmers (Bologna), Agrivolution (Naples), and GrowPro (Romainville) combining technological and architectural skills into novel ways of food production in urban environments, could convince the expert jury and the audience most. Awarded with a monetary prize of 4’000 euro, the winning teams can now look forward to the partly realisation of their concepts.
The University of Bologna included the summary of the main concepts, visions and approaches of the UrbanFarm 2021 finalists in a publication which can be found here.