Available Now: New Resources for PGS Advocates and Practitioners

There is a broad global consensus that the way we produce and consume our food urgently needs to change if we are to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2030 and address global challenges from climate change and biodiversity loss to poverty and deteriorating health. But overall the central question still remains. How can we make food systems more sustainable?

A Multi-Stakeholder Project and its Contribution

The recent EATingCRAFT project (Education Towards the Creation of Alternative Food Networks) sought to answer these questions by looking at ways to transform our food systems at the local and national scale. Concluded in December 2019 after a two-year implementation period, EATingCRAFT was carried out in coordination with IFOAM – Organics International and six European partners: Nature et Progrès (France), Association of Conscious Consumers (Hungary), PRO-BIO Liga (Czech Republic), MIRAMAP (France), Agroecopolis (Greece), and International CSA Network URGENCI (France).

These partners worked together to advocate for sustainable food systems rooted in organic agriculture. They developed a training program on Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) for adult learners, which focused on how to adopt/adapt PGS in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives. PGS and CSA are similar in their objectives to improve livelihoods for organic producers and increase consumer access to safe and nutritious foods. Both systems enhance transparent and shared decision-making and prioritize a solidarity-based approach, which allows for the responsibilities of implementing sustainable practices to be shared by the community.

A Multi-Stakeholder Project and its Contribution

In the scope of the EATingCRAFT project, we created and updated several of our PGS resources:

• New Animated Video: Discover the key elements and facets of PGS and local sustainable food systems through this new animated video about PGS!

• Updated Guidelines: "PGS Guidelines. How to Develop and Manage Participatory Guarantee Systems for Organic Agriculture". These guidelines form the cornerstone of IFOAM – Organics International support to PGS development worldwide. These guidelines highlight how PGS initiatives share a common set of key elements and features, despite being developed independently in different countries and cultural contexts. They also propose a step-by-step approach for implementing PGS and introduce valuable concepts, such as marketing and organizational arrangement.
• 2019 Survey Results and Digital Map: Results for the 2019 IFOAM - Organics International global survey on PGS initiatives are now available! Visit our map for a global overview of the development of PGS. Click here for the maps.
• New PGS Data: The latest data about PGS is also available for download online. Visit the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) website here to download the PDF of “The World of Organic Agriculture”.
• PGS Toolkit: Access even more PGS-related resources and information here!

PARTNERS AND SPONSORS

There are seven main consortium partners.

This project was generously funded by the European Union under the Erasmus + Programme.