The Cardinia Food Circles Collective Impact Project aimed to establish a healthy, delicious, sustainable, and fair food system for all Cardinia Shire residents.
The project began in November 2016 as a partnership between Cardinia Shire Council and backbone partners Sustain Australia to facilitate changes in the local food systems, which could support better health outcomes.
The Cardinia Shire Community Food Strategy was created and guided by a steering committee, and key partners from local and regional health organisations, education and research institutions, the food industry, community members, not-for-profit organisations, and local government staff.
Together, they advocated for and promoted the Strategy’s shared vision and common agenda, and led and supported key actions and activities across the wider project.
Lessons Learnt: Empowering local communities and engaging diverse partners are essential for building resilient, equitable food systems. Multisectoral approaches, focused on food literacy and local innovation, amplify the reach and sustainability of food strategies.
In 2016, Cardinia Shire embarked on an ambitious journey to transform its food landscape for all residents. Through months of extensive community consultation, the Council listened to local voices, aspirations, and challenges around food access, affordability, and quality.
This collaboration shaped the development of the first-ever Community Food Strategy for Cardinia, outlining a shared commitment to nutritious, sustainable, and culturally meaningful food.
Guided by five strategic objectives, Cardinia pledged to protect fertile agricultural land and empower local growers. The strategy supports a vibrant food economy, ensuring that fresh, healthy produce is both accessible and affordable.
Schools, workplaces, and clubs throughout the region have become central settings for fostering food literacy, skills, and positive food culture. Efforts to reduce and divert food waste, alongside water reuse initiatives, are framed as environmental and social imperatives. Finally, building capacity—by encouraging leadership, participation, and partnership—underpins all strategy work.
Over time, this work has led to greater advocacy for the community food system. New policies and plans have emerged from grassroots initiatives. Partnerships between the council, community organisations, local businesses, and volunteers have flourished, creating stronger support and new public spaces for food-related activities. Workforce skill-building and targeted funding have ensured these actions remain both relevant and sustainable.
Cardinia’s story is one of innovation and collaboration, showing what happens when people unite around a common vision: food that’s good for people, good for the place, and good for the future.
The cornerstone lesson is that genuine community engagement and strong partnerships are key to meaningful food system change. By listening deeply and working together, Cardinia forged a foundation for lasting improvements—ensuring healthy, sustainable food is more than just an aspiration, but a lived reality for current and future generations.
The ICDA SFS Toolkit is made to be used & shared freely. Please cite the authors of the resources you use, and the ICDA SFS Toolkit if you are able: InternationalDietetics.org/Sustainability
This case study introduces Basil’s Harvest, a Chicago-based nonprofit, focused on transforming regional food systems for a healthier future.
Through technical assistance, training, and outreach, Basil’s Harvest leads transdisciplinary collaborations and empowers new leadership to integrate “Food is Health” and “One Health” into the institutions they lead.
Basil’s Harvest is currently partnering with the National Guard, Iowa State University, University of Illinois College of Medicine, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, and OSF HealthCare.
Basil’s Harvest drives systemic change in the food and health landscape through these collaborations.
Basil’s Harvest believes that soil health is fundamental to human health. We’re witnessing a transformative shift – as more farmers adopt regenerative practices, we see tangible benefits for human health, animal welfare, producer livelihoods, and the environment. By encouraging community institutions like hospitals, schools, and the military to support regenerative practices through their purchasing power, we prioritize soil health and the overall wellness of our communities.
Our mission is clear: We aim to transform regional food systems for a healthier future. By leveraging transdisciplinary collaborations and empowering new leaders through hands-on training, we drive systemic change in the food and health landscape.
OUR THEORY OF CHANGE
Based on dialogue with leaders across food, farm, and health systems and a great deal of thought, we have created a system map that depicts the context in which we operate and the dynamics we work to transform. While this map does not aim to represent the whole system, it articulates the dynamics and interconnections that we are lifting up and focusing on in our work. Our hope is that this is a powerful way to be transparent about how we are working to make change, and serves as a tool to help us dialogue and align with partners and collaborators across the system.
This presentation is available in an interactive format – you can click on any loop title, element or connection to go deeper. To view and explore, visit https://basilsharvest.org/theory-of-change/.
It all starts with the land.
A core dynamic today is the growth of regenerative agriculture. As these farming systems take root, it drives a greater availability and expansion in market pathways for regeneratively grown food.
More local and regional markets for regenerative food support the viability of independent family farms and reinforce the success of regenerative agriculture.
Importantly, regenerative farming improves environmental health overall – especially soil health. This, in turn, supports climate adaptation, beneficial ecosystem services, natural resource conservation and regeneration, farm resilience, and human health.
Resilient landscapes mean resilient farm businesses.
As more farms adopt regenerative farming practices, improvements in soil health will enhance on-farm ecosystems and operations, mitigating disturbances such as droughts and extreme heat.
Increased resilience supports the viability of more farming operations. This, in turn, reinforces the benefits of on-farm regenerative practices.
Soil health nurtures human health.
Improved soil health supports farm viability; improved plant health enhances the nutritional value of food crops; more nutritious food enhances human health.
As a result, farms with regenerative practices mean fewer health problems for farmworkers and neighboring communities.
As regenerative agriculture expands, more people gain access to healthy food, which in turn reinforces improved market pathways and revenue for family farms.
Supply chains reinforce the success of regenerative agriculture.
Successful regenerative farming drives the creation of more supply chain infrastructure, such as aggregation, processing, and value-add facilities.
As this infrastructure expands, it enables new, alternative market pathways that in turn support farm viability and reinforce regenerative agriculture.
Policy drives regenerative ag success.
As more people support and access regeneratively grown food, government is influenced to enact policies that further enable regenerative food systems (both on-farm and through the supply chain.) These in turn enhance market pathways which reinforce affordability of, and access to, these products.
Definitions and standards create a clear foundation.
As definitions, certification standards, and the regulatory processes around regenerative agriculture become clearly defined, it reduces uncertainty for farmers exploring regenerative methods to produce foods and fiber. Increased adoption illustrates to other regenerative farmers and ranchers that policies are supportive and markets are accessible. Long-term adoption of regenerative farming practices becomes more prevalent across the region and leads to a higher volume of food being grown in these ways, necessitating more development of market pathways for regenerative foods.
Brakes on consolidation.
As consolidation intensifies in food and farm systems, the largest entities in the system, including foodservice management companies and retailers, are able to command greater market power and secure greater profits at the expense of independent agricultural producers. Policy interventions that support diverse, regional, regenerative food and farming systems help put the brakes on runaway consolidation.
Institutions have unusual leverage to shift the system.
Schools and universities, military bases, hospitals, food banks, prisons, and senior care facilities. are community-based institutions that provide societal functions and typically operate around formal structure and bureaucratic processes. Dining facilities in institutions are an access point with significant market power for regional and regenerative products. Sourcing these types of ingredients for foodservice not only supports regional farms, it also provides a consistent source of nutrient-dense food to ensure the health and wellbeing of students, patients, servicemembers, and employees.
Institutions need champions.
Champions within these institutions are critical in driving change and supporting the internal structural and procedural shifts needed to enable regional, regenerative food procurement. As trusted leaders affirm the connections between food, farming, and human health, we see a growing acceptance of the “food is health” and “One Health” paradigms, which views food not just as fuel, but as a preventative factor against non-communicable diseases. As acceptance of this concept grows, so too does a foundation of support for institutional change.
Institutions support health equity.
As institutions serve more regional, regenerative food, they are making it more accessible across the community, which contributes to greater health equity and, in turn, resiliency and overall wellbeing. This ultimately supports a stronger community, reinforcing the positive impacts of sourcing regional, regenerative food for institutional foodservice.
All of these dynamics weave together, and form the basis of Basil’s Harvest’s work in the world. We strive to transform the food and health landscape by utilizing three primary interventions (depicted as gold diamonds):
Technical Assistance: We partner with institutions and vendors to transform their food systems through strategic support. Our work includes developing procurement plans that connect regional farmers with institutional buyers for improved supply chain logistics, creating delicious recipes and performing nutritional analysis to ensure federal guidelines are met, and navigating food safety regulations.
Training: We co-develop evidence-based curricula that build practitioner literacy across healthcare and food service sectors. Our programs integrate culinary medicine into medical education, teach health care professionals about soil health and nutrient density connections, and train foodservice staff to incorporate regional, whole/minimally processed ingredients into institutional menus. We equip professionals with Food is Health and One Health knowledge to champion sustainable food systems within their institutions.
Outreach: We share transformative stories and actionable insights through our Impact Library, Farm-to-Institution (F2I) Toolkit, and thought leadership partnerships. We empower medical professionals, dietitians, foodservice providers, and sustainability directors with practical resources to implement change. Our outreach creates a network of champions—from farmers to policy makers—who understand how regional, regenerative food systems improve both human and planetary health. Sign up for our mailing list for news and updates on our work!
Basil’s Harvest supports partners via two secondary interventions (depicted as blue diamonds):
Research: We support collaborative research to increase the availability and quality of data demonstrating the connections between soil health and human health. This data supports and amplifies the effectiveness of our other interventions by contributing to a foundation of knowledge for collaborative projects, training programs, and outreach to leadership in institutional supply chains.
Policy Advocacy: We support policy actions that bolster regional and regenerative farming and supply chains, and the affordability of healthy, regeneratively-grown food. These types of policies support our other interventions by creating more funding opportunities and infrastructure for regional & regenerative agriculture programs and partnerships.
We engage with partners using these primary & secondary interventions around key intervention points (depicted with a gold halo), to influence three leverage points (depicted as pentagons), or the “levers of change” which hold great potential to transform food, farm, and health systems.
In other words, these leverage points hold meaningful opportunities…
There is growing recognition that how food is grown matters to human nutrition and health.
Policymakers are primed to support initiatives that build community health and wealth and address climate change.
There is growing infrastructure to support regenerative land management practices and more examples of how these are benefitting farmers’ triple bottom line (economic, social, and ecological).
Communities are gaining knowledge and skills to foster vitality, equity and resilience.
Institutions have the power to support wider community health & wealth, and drive regenerative land management.
Learning through experience fosters deep connection with land and people.
When people experience real regeneratively grown and thoughtfully prepared food, they will be inspired and won’t go back to the old way of doing things.
The growing movement to reshape the future of food brings support for regenerative food systems.
…to drive transformation across food, farm, and health systems.
Communities across the region have access to and are choosing affordable, locally produced, and nutrition-rich foods.
Communities most historically impacted by poor health outcomes are thriving and healthy; health equity is strong.
A higher number of farms and acreage are under production systems that nurture agroecosystem health.
More farms and farmers are thriving with strong local markets and supply chain infrastructure.
Rural and urban communities are resilient to economic & environmental disruption.
It’s common knowledge that how food is grown affects community health and nutrition.
Health sector leaders and institutions are promoting food is medicine, using an environmental nutrition lens.
All those working to participate in community wellbeing through food have the spiritual and community support they need to make these changes.
OUR THEORY OF CHANGE IN ACTION
The Regenerative Agriculture in the Heartland Project served as a real example of a farm-to-hospital model implemented in the upper Midwest region of the United States, bringing regenerative oats from Doubting Thomas Farms to hospital trays at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.
Published in Frontiers in Nutrition, this review titled From soil to health advancing regenerative agriculture for improved food quality and nutrition security “examines the global challenges posed by the industrial agriculture model, particularly regarding ecosystem degradation and an inability to meet human nutritional needs..” Carl L. Rosier, Anya Knecht, Jasia S. Steinmetz, Amy Weckle, Kelly Bloedorn, Erin Meyer (October 16, 2025)
Regenerative Ag in the Heartland: Paving the Path to a Regional Farm-to-Military Value Chain is a farm-to-military initiative which aims to transform military nutrition by embedding sustainability and health into national defense logistics. It aims to create a new farm-to-institution market channel between local producers and the National Guard in IL and MN, and is being implemented as part of the Department of Defense’s Go For Green (G4G) Initiative.
Healing from the Ground Up is a 1.5 day summit hosted by Basil’s Harvest that bridges the gap between agriculture, food systems, and healthcare! With expert presentations, group discussion, and information-sharing, the summit features opportunities for attendees to engage, learn, and grow.
Food for Thought
What specific skills, expertise, or resources do you bring to cross-sector collaboration?
Think about how your background (i.e., healthcare, agriculture, education, policy, research) can contribute to building bridges between sectors.
Are you looking to advance a farm-to-institution initiative and need guidance? We encourage you to take our Farm-to-Institution (F2I) Toolkit today!
The ICDA SFS Toolkit is made to be used & shared freely. Please cite the authors of the resources you use, and the ICDA SFS Toolkit if you are able: InternationalDietetics.org/Sustainability
Capacity building & education (hubs, campaigns, training).
Infrastructure (water, composting, digital networks).
Funding (new mechanisms, pooled resources).
Monitoring & data (metrics, updated maps).
Impact So Far
The online map shows 100+ initiatives.
Authorities are beginning to view community growing as central to health, climate, and planning.
Grassroots groups feel heard and empowered.
Lessons for Other Regions
Start with mapping and listening.
Create visioning spaces for communities.
Blend infrastructure with cultural change.
Support networks for resilience.
Embed growing into policy frameworks.
Bioregional Conclusion
Food growing strengthens the relationship between people and place.
Projects act as living nodes in an interconnected ecology of health, climate resilience, and cultural identity.
Rooting initiatives in the distinct geography and culture of Tayside makes them regenerative, not just reactive.
Full Case Study
In the Tay Bioregion, communities are being encouraged to reimagine what it means to grow food — not just as rows of vegetables, but as roots of connection, wellbeing, and resilience. The Mapping Community‑Led Food Growing in Tayside initiative, born from the energy of a climate-focused conference, has become a compelling story of place, people, and potential.
Figure 1: Intervention Wheel
Seedbed: How it all started
In March 2023, in Dundee, a gathering called “Feeding Tayside Through The Climate Crisis” set out to examine how Tayside’s food system must transform in this decade — for climate mitigation, biodiversity, food security, inclusivity, healthier diets, and resilience.
From this conference emerged an array of ideas — but also something concrete: a framework, dubbed the Intervention Wheel, which visualised where action was needed. One of the first spokes on that wheel? Mapping community-led food growing across Tayside — figuring out who is doing it, where, how, and with what support.
Thus, under the banner “Strengthening & Developing Community-led Food Growing in Tayside: Recipes for Action”, Bioregioning Tayside embarked on Phase 1: to understand the current landscape.
Method: Listening, Looking, Mapping
Figure 2: Screenshot of StoryMap of community-led Food Growing in Tayside
The team gathered data in several ways:
Desktop Research & Mapping: Existing records from councils, charities, and community groups were combined and cross-referenced, locating and cataloguing initiatives across Tayside.
Survey: Over one hundred groups were contacted. The survey asked about governance, staffing, growing methods, soil knowledge, challenges, and aspirations. Thirty-two groups responded, painting a diverse picture of activity and needs.
Live Sessions: Community sessions in Angus, Dundee, and Perth & Kinross invited growers and volunteers to share their dreams and challenges — from access to land to visions of edible neighbourhoods.
What They Discovered: Blooms and Barriers
What’s growing well
A rich diversity of projects: allotments, orchards, community gardens, and therapeutic spaces.
Strong online presence for many groups, with social media acting as a bridge to the public.
A mix of methods: raised beds, polytunnels, greenhouses, and container growing.
Enthusiasm for greener futures, harvest festivals, shared surplus food, and reconnecting people — young and old — with the land.
Where it’s not so easy
Land access: secure, usable spaces remain a barrier.
Funding & infrastructure: reliance on volunteers, patchy resources, such as shelters, water, or compost facilities.
Knowledge gaps: soil health, climate-adapted growing, and year-round production remain challenges.
Coordination & visibility: groups can be hard to find, limiting networking and collaboration.
Policy friction: permissions and planning processes often slow or block progress.
Dreams Rooted in Soil: Aspirations from the Field
The live sessions revealed powerful collective visions:
Edible landscapes integrated into new housing developments.
School gardens becoming part of everyday learning.
Shared seeds, heritage varieties, and local festivals celebrating food.
Stronger networks, pooling resources, and amplifying grassroots voices.
Accessible, inclusive spaces that welcome beginners and reduce red tape.
Turning Data into Action: Recipes & Interventions
From these insights, the Recipes for Action identified key intervention areas:
Policy Change & Visibility: Creating a community‑led food growing charter, embedding food in local planning.
Capacity Building & Education: Strengthening hubs, offering training, promoting value of community growing.
Infrastructure: Expanding access to essentials like water, composting, and digital networks.
Funding: Exploring new mechanisms, from grants to crowdfunding, to ensure sustainability.
Monitoring & Data: Establishing metrics to measure impact and keep public maps up to date.
The Impact So Far & What’s Next
The project has already begun to shift perceptions:
The online map highlights over 100 community growing initiatives, making them visible and accessible.
The enabling conditions for strengthening and developing community growing in Tayside are being better understood by policy and funding organisations
The role of community growing as central to health, climate, and development strategies.
Grassroots groups are being offered the opportunity to connect across the Bioregion, enabling their collective voice to be heard, contributing not only practical insights but visions for policy.
Looking ahead, the next phases will focus on:
Launching a regional charter.
Building stronger grower networks.
Running awareness campaigns and community events.
Improving infrastructure, both physical and digital.
Establishing ongoing monitoring and evaluation systems.
Piloting Hyper-Local Food Plans as part of Tayside’s new Climate Adaptation Strategy
Reflections: What Makes This Story Special
This is more than another environmental project. It centres people and place. It recognises food growing as a nexus of health, identity, community, and climate resilience. Mapping makes visible what is often overlooked — showing that what people are already doing deserves recognition, support, and integration into wider systems. It also models transformation as a staged process: listen, map, connect, support, and then scale. Growing communities, like growing soil, takes patience and care.
Lessons for Other Regions
Begin by mapping and listening: know what already exists.
Create spaces for visioning: let people articulate their aspirations.
Blend infrastructure with culture: physical resources matter, but so does shifting public perception.
Support networks: collaboration strengthens resilience.
Embed in policy: integrate community food growing into planning and development.
Conclusion: A Bioregional View of Tayside’s Food Future
Seen through a bioregional lens, the Tayside story is not simply about food projects scattered across a map, but about the renewal of relationships between people and place. Community gardens, orchards, allotments, and therapeutic growing spaces become living nodes in a wider ecology — connecting soil health to human health, climate action to cultural resilience, local identity to global responsibility.
By mapping, listening, and weaving these initiatives into networks, Tayside is beginning to act as a true bioregion: recognising that flourishing communities and thriving landscapes are inseparable. The case study shows that when food growing is rooted in the distinct geography, culture, and ecology of a place, it becomes more than a response to crisis — it becomes a pathway to regeneration.
The ICDA SFS Toolkit is made to be used & shared freely. Please cite the authors of the resources you use, and the ICDA SFS Toolkit if you are able: InternationalDietetics.org/Sustainability
Rodrigo Pacheco is a world-famous chef, and FAO National Goodwill Ambassador for Ecuador.
He created the world’s largest biodiverse edible forest (food forest) located on the coast of the Ecuadorian province of Manabi, where he sustainably grows ingredients for the food served in his restaurant Bocavaldivia. He also founded the Bocavaldivia Foundation.
Chef Pacheco is a Rockefeller Fellow and a frequent speaker at international events that focus on climate change, agro-biodiversity, and sustainable gastronomy.
Big Bet:
“Create the world’s largest Biodiverse Edible Forest to protect nature, ancestral knowledge and create economic opportunity for local communities to put biodiversity on the plate.”
Project:
“Create the largest cross-country corridor of regenerated forest producing edible native species. This innovative approach leverages downstream food systems to protect, strengthen, expand, and reconnect natural ecosystems and cultural diversity of indigenous peoples across northern Latin America.
This project conserves primary forest in its pristine state; monitors biodiversity; restores deforested areas with regenerative methods; promotes sustainable gastronomy and ecological tourism as sources of transversal economy; and trains future generations to continue the work.”
Bocavaldivia is the art of culinary expression as an instrument for transformation.
The ICDA SFS Toolkit is made to be used & shared freely. Please cite the authors of the resources you use, and the ICDA SFS Toolkit if you are able: InternationalDietetics.org/Sustainability
The 13 agroecology principles provide a comprehensive framework that directly supports improved nutrition by promoting sustainable, diverse, and locally adapted food systems.
Key principles such as input reduction, biodiversity, and economic diversification enhance the availability of diverse and nutrient-rich foods by fostering ecological balance and varied production. Principles like social values and diets, fairness, connectivity, and participation emphasize culturally appropriate, equitable access to healthy diets and strengthen local food economies and community involvement, which are crucial for food security and nutrition.
For nutritionists, this means agroecology not only improves the quality and diversity of food supply but also addresses social determinants of nutrition by supporting small-scale producers, respecting cultural food traditions, and promoting fair, localized food systems. Nutrition thus acts both as a critical outcome and a driver of agroecological practices, helping to transform food systems toward sustainability, equity, and better health outcomes.
Members implement a variety of projects and initiatives to promote agroecology, which are continually being captured in case studies (see link in the side panel).
At the same link you can also read/share/print the pubication “Agroecology in Action: Stories from the Ground”! It showcases ten projects making the case for agroecology and illustrates how the Agroecology Principles and Elements can be operationalized in various contexts. From Asia (India, Nepal, Himalayas), Africa (Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Tchad, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger), the Middle East (Lebanon), to Latin America (Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador) and Europe many organizations work together to implement projects and initiatives to transform the food systems through agroecology.
Discover actionable insights from Food + Planet case studies, showcasing innovative collaborations and strategies to advance sustainability in food systems.
From reducing food waste and promoting plant-based menus to ocean-friendly seafood choices and empowering dietitians globally, these examples highlight the transformative impact of the 4 Dimensions Sustainable Diet Framework.
The ICDA SFS toolkit has one as well, and Food + Planet are adding more all the time.
NeverEndingFood (NEF) Permaculture is a home and community outreach that demonstrates approaches to all aspects of sustainable living, focused on resources indigenous to Malawi.
The United Nations World Food Program’s Sustainable Nutrition Manual is free to download and shares NEF’s work and insights and highlights that “true solutions to…food and nutrition problems lie with the people themselves and the agricultural systems they are using to feed themselves”. There are multiple manuals, flyers, posters, and images to download from the link.
People create sustainable designs for their homes, offices, schools, churches, cities, etc. such as food forests, fuel efficient kitchens, water harvesting, composting toilets etc. for diverse production of foods, fuel, fodder, fibres, medicines, etc. for better nutrition, water and soil conservation and to transition away from synthetic seed and chemical inputs.
Ripple effects: Organizations such as the Permaculture Paradise Institutein Mchinji were started by Malawians who learned with NeverEndingFood. The Nordins actively participate in governance structures, having an influence on policies and programmes at many levels.
In April of 1997, Stacia and Kristof Nordin came to Malawi through the U.S. Peace Corps to do HIV prevention work. Stacia is a Registered Dietitian, and Kristof is a social worker by training. Over time, they came to see HIV in the way that the village they were in saw it—as part of a whole. They began to see that a disease that attacks the immune system is connected to malnutrition that compromises the immune system, which is connected to the diversity of foods being grown locally, which is connected to soil fertility and fresh water availability, and so on—an interconnected cycle.
During this time, they were introduced to the concepts of Permaculture, which emphasize:
Care for the Earth
Care for people
Fair share of all resources
Some of the products from the Nordin’s home in Malawi
The Nordins, joined by their daughter Khalidwe in 2001, integrate Permaculture into all aspects of their life. They created NeverEndingFood (NEF), their home in Chitedze, a small village about 30 km from the capital city, Lilongwe. Their home serves as a Permaculture demonstration as well as a space to train interns and host visitors.
At NEF, they implement a well-designed system that provides perennial, year-round access to diverse and nutritious foods and medicines. This approach helps families be more self-sufficient, have access to better nutrition, save money by reducing dependency on expensive agricultural inputs, have better soil, sanitation, and water management, and access additional income through food processing, diversified markets, and unique product ideas. They multiply indigenous resources and share them for others to multiply further.
The advent of input-dependent, mono-culture farming on much of Malawi’s agricultural land led to an agricultural focus and dependence on maize as the primary crop, which isn’t native to Malawi. In spite of being blessed with a tropical climate and plentiful water, and indigenous biodiversity, most people now produce primarily one maize crop a year, leading to malnutrition due to the reliance on a single crop for the bulk of people’s nutritional needs.
In line with traditional farming practices around the world, Permaculture diversifies agricultural production to include local legumes, nuts, fruits, vegetables, starches, fats, animals, medicinal species, spices, fodder, fuel, and fibres. This improves nutrition while conserving water, improving soil fertility, providing for energy, converting organic matter into a resource, and much more!
The Nordins believe that all solutions come from the people themselves, which helps to provide the self-confidence and ownership that it will take to address future problems sustainably. Along with the work happening in Chitedze, the efforts and relationships at NEF have initiated and inspired many other projects that use an integrated Permaculture approach to address sustainability and nutrition. Recognizing and incorporating these interconnections means that many of the initiatives simultaneously contribute to healthier and more diverse ecosystems, better human health and nutrition, community wellness, and economic resilience.
What indigenous species do you know and use where you are?
How are the global, industrialized food and agriculture systems influencing food systems in your area?
Keeping these broader systems in mind, what solutions do you see that offer synergistic improvements in human nutrition and environmental sustainability?
The ICDA SFS Toolkit is made to be used & shared freely. Please cite the authors of the resources you use, and the ICDA SFS Toolkit if you are able: InternationalDietetics.org/Sustainability
A senior UCD academic from the SPHPSS has contributed to Airfield’s Education and Research Committee since 2020.
The collaboration has enabled student training and research relevant to sustainable food systems through BSc human nutrition undergraduate work placements, and MSc dietetics and PhD nutritional science projects for over seven years. It has allowed Airfield Estate to establish itself as a research body on both national and international stages.
UCD gains access to the public and use of the farm, gardens, restaurant, and demonstration kitchen for practice-based training of students and research studies.
Airfield Estate gains access to academic processes and research project supervision.
This UCD-Airfield Estate collaboration provides a mutually beneficial, relatively low-cost structure to create research, train students, and access the public.
Background:
Airfield Estate is a 38-acre working farm and gardens located in the suburbs of Dublin, Ireland. Open every day to the public, its aim is to become Dublin’s Sustainable Food Hub in a world-leading, sustainable food city. Run as an organic and regenerative farm, the Estate completes the farm-to-fork story with a restaurant and farmers market supplied by the farm and gardens. As an organisation that has 230,000 visitors a year, and which has both an educational and research remit, it offers an opportunity for its local University, UCD, to collaborate on a range of projects. UCD, a public research university with over 38,000 students, is Ireland’s largest university.
Collaborations between Airfield Estate and UCD range from undergraduate professional work experience (9 months) to postgraduate masters and PhD projects. The Estate also facilitates UCD conferences and summer school visits that focus on the practical application of sustainable food systems as well as consumer behaviour change.
UCD students and supervisors work in partnership with the education and research department of Airfield Estate to create research projects from hypothesis to dissemination. Critical to this is the facilitation of ethical approval for these projects through the University. The participation of a high-level UCD academic on the Education and Research Committee at Airfield Estate is also important as it supports Airfield Estate positioning itself for academic grant applications and ensuring that the Estate engages in relevant research.
The success of the collaborative approach between UCD and Airfield Estate is based on offering academic staff and students a whole system understanding and approach to food systems, as well as access to and working with both food production experts and consumers. The research conducted by students on the Estate is consumer-centered and intervention-driven, creating a testbed for programmes with potential to be scaled to national and international levels. Airfield Estate has email and social media access to a large public cohort offering an invaluable reservoir for conducting surveys, creating focus groups, and accessing audiences for research dissemination events. UCD provides academic supervision of all placements and projects, ensuring that they are ethically and rigorously conducted.
Lessons Learnt
1) The symbiosis of academic and non-academic education and research partners creates novel opportunities for education and research.
Having a non-academic partner with a focus on educating the public, advocating for sustainable food systems and a large database of customers, members, and followers on social media offers the academic partner a unique opportunity for education and research into consumer behaviour and consumers’ relationships with food. The facilities and proximity to the academic partner (3 km) allow for easy access for student placements and supervision, summer school educational visits, conference outings, and lectures. The provision of restaurant meals with food supplied by the farm and gardens demonstrates the practical application of a food systems approach.
UCD has been critical to the establishment of Airfield’s education and research department, contributing ethical review and approval for all research projects undertaken, the students to undertake the projects, and academic supervision. This ensures an ethical and rigorous process that protects vulnerable population groups is in place as well as facilitating the submission of high-quality research findings to national and international conferences and for peer-reviewed publication. The students and researchers from UCD working with Airfield Estate also provide an opportunity for the Estate to measure the impact of internally driven projects and programmes which is critical to future grant funding applications.
2) The non-academic partner must have a structure capable of planning and managing research.
Airfield Estate’s strategy contains several pillars, one of which is ‘Powerful Research’. As such, it has developed an Education and Research Committee with both external and internal stakeholders that meets quarterly and has created its own 5-year research strategy. The Board, Trustees and Senior management of the Estate are all supportive of the research conducted at the Estate and a model of both internal research (supported by 9-month work placements by BSc human nutrition students and an in-house research officer) and international research (European Union Horizon projects) has developed.
3) Selection of topics for research must be relevant and robust for both parties.
So as not to waste time and limited resources, as a self-funded non-academic body, Airfield Estate needs to plan and strategically and critically evaluate research that is relevant to its remit and to its potential to submit successful future grant applications. Hence, the decision-making process on what research projects are undertaken must be robust and meet the needs of both the non-academic and academic partners. The research data and end user of the intervention must also be clearly identified in advance, utilize the expertise of academic staff and must fulfil students’ academic programme requirements.
How can a non-academic partner contact a university (and vice versa) to begin a conversation on collaborating? Is there a structure within your organization or university for this?
Memorandums of understanding are important to define the aims, relationships, and resources needed for the partnership.
Piloting small interventions through local non-academic partners brings research to life for the public, enriches the offering and grant potential of the organization, and provides a high-quality and engaging learning experience for students.
Contact Information:
Prof Clare Corish, Professor of Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics, University College Dublin, clare.corish@ucd.ie
The ICDA SFS Toolkit is made to be used & shared freely. Please cite the authors of the resources you use, and the ICDA SFS Toolkit if you are able: InternationalDietetics.org/Sustainability
This case study originated from a dietitian in Germany who shared their story via a webinar hosted by the ICDA-SFS Toolkit Team.
The European food laws state that only 100% perfect fruits and vegetables can be sold, creates an opportunity to reduce food waste and save money for recovering drug addicts in Germany.
Lessons Learnt: The fruits and vegetables fromdistributors, which they are required not to sell due to not being “100% perfect”, can help reduce food waste by using this produce to create jams, chutneys, etc., that can be used in meals and donated.
Background
The laws around food and food distribution are different from region to region and can have an impact on what happens to food throughout the food system, specifically in the process of distribution. The European food laws restrict distributors from selling any fruits or vegetables that are not 100% perfect. For example, “if a single peach in a tray has small damages, the whole tray is not allowed to be sold”, as explained from the source of this case study.
With such a high standard for fruits and vegetables, distributors try to find reliable partners that can pick up and further process the fruits and vegetables that cannot be sold. Fortunately, the Dietitian for an open living community for recovering drug addicts in Germany was able to take advantage of these distributors and their produce.
Implementation & Impact
An open living community for recovering drug addicts in Germany consists of professional individuals, including a Dietitian, who aim to help strengthen the overall life competencies of these members. Part of their therapy includes working in social agriculture, which opened the opportunity to help create a sustainable solution for the food waste created through fruit and vegetable distribution.
The Dietitian organized for the members of this community to gather the produce and goods from the distributors twice a week, while also learning how to filter out the fine fruits and vegetables that can be used for future consumption. After filtering through the produce, the members are able to, through guidance, process these fruits and vegetables into jams, juice, chutneys, syrup, cakes, and much more. These products are then added to their meal plans to help increase fruit and vegetable consumption in a sustainable, hands-on way, which helps to create a sense of pride and value to the members of this community.
Any overproduction of these products is then given away as donations from the members of this open living community. In addition, through the money they saved by resourcing this produce, they were able to buy a pool table for their personal gratification and hard work. Through this initiative, the group members learn resourceful skills in reducing food waste, while also creating personal competencies that are useful in many aspects of recovery.
The ICDA SFS Toolkit is made to be used & shared freely. Please cite the authors of the resources you use, and the ICDA SFS Toolkit if you are able: InternationalDietetics.org/Sustainability
The Chennai chapter was created to incorporate dietitians and nutritional assessment into the school to help increase the nutritional status of the students.
Lessons Learnt: Integrating school gardens that incorporate both the students and the parents can have a positive impact on both the lunch menu and the nutritional status of the children at home.
History
The Dr. MGR Home & Higher Secondary School for the Speech & Hearing Impaired was founded in 1990 by Dr. MGR. The vision and mission of this institution is to help the rehabilitation of the differently abled learn up to higher secondary education in sciences, computer and writing skills. In addition, teachers within this institution help teach gymnastic, yoga and dance skills to help in overall personal development. This home also offers additional resources in terms of amplification devices to help with hearing and speech for job oriented practical training to allow them to feel more comfortable in society, school and careers. Through the dedication of their staff, this institution is able to provide valuable education to their students and are continuously looking for ways to help them in all aspects of life, including nutrition.
Nutrition Implementation
In 2005/2006, the president of the Indian Dietetic Association created the Chennai chapter which began the nutritional screening of the children within the school and received help from both the principal and the Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute to retrieve the medical information needed. The Chennai chapter consisted of both dietitians and students who would go to the school for multiple weeks retrieving diet information and giving diet education to the children and their parents. The dietitians were able to identify specific children who were malnourished and able to give them and their family further counseling on how to counteract the undernourishment. The children were assessed over a two year period and nutritional improvements were noted.
The Chennai chapter also collaborated with the school lunch program to help increase the quantity and quality of vegetables that were being offered. In order to help with the increase of vegetables, the school reached out to Dr. Sultan Ahmed Ismail , who is the director of EcoScience Research Foundation, to help utilize their large amount of land as a form of gardening. While children were in class, parents would stay and help with the development of the garden, which began to grow tomatoes, papaya, and green leafy vegetables, as well as coriander and mint. Through the help of educating both the children and the parents, the garden was able to supply the school lunch menu with important vegetables needed for their nutrition.
In 2016, two posters were presented at the ICD Granada, Spain for the research work that was done in Chennai. These posters were created and presented in collaboration with the University of Southern Queensland and Central Washington University. More recently in February 2020, additional research was conducted in the same school by Dr. Ethan Bergman regarding the Nutrient analysis school lunches and anthropometric measures in a private and public school in Chennai, India.
Food for Thought
How can Dietitians-Nutritionists play a role in increasing the gardening, harvesting, and consumption of vegetables by both students and parents in the school system?
How can Dietitians-Nutritionists play a role in advocating for policies surrounding the increase of local gardens as a source of food beyond schools, such as hospitals and restaurants?
What type of social and/or environmental sustainability would be positively impacted by adapting school gardens?
The ICDA SFS Toolkit is made to be used & shared freely. Please cite the authors of the resources you use, and the ICDA SFS Toolkit if you are able: InternationalDietetics.org/Sustainability
Created 2020; updated 2025 May
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