MANIFESTO

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

The Manifesto represents the vision of the Bites of Transfoodmation It is a vision of a future society through the perspective of food. 

The Manifesto is available in various languages.

Currently, our community members voluntarily translated the Manifesto into 50+ languages and vernaculars. 

Bites of Transfoodmation Manifesto

The time is ready to build a new society through the perspective of food. We1 – including myself and yourself, as well as my actions addressed to you and your actions impacting me – are ready to build a unifying vision of new society starting from food.

But why should we do it? First, because we can, because we need to, and because we have everything we need to do it. Secondly, because it will give everyone the opportunity to experience happiness and wellbeing while living a longer life. Third, because it will help us learn to respect our planet before it is too late.

We believe in the unifying power of food to shape cohesive and sustainable societies. We envision societies as living organisms shaped by their habitats and attitudes. We, as individuals and as a group, strive to uphold attitudes that embrace awareness intertwined with an evolving ethics, diversity, fairness, and inclusion. The objective is to trigger a positive cycle of being, doing and belonging that is supported by our ever-increasing capacity to connect to help shape our habitats. Through food, we therefore strive to trigger processes that positively transform attitudes and habitats.

1) This idea and this manifesto has been formulated using evidence-based science, insight and input from policy experts, scientific researchers, activists, farmers, chefs, legal scholars, architects, nutritionists, athletes, engineers, food entrepreneurs, and the everyday experience and perspective of citizen-consumers.

Narratives and Advocacy

We aim to shape multiple narratives by embracing diversity and introducing a culture of empowerment as well as personal commitment, while rethinking our habits through the perspective of true cost and affordability of food. This implies that we look at sustainability through its long-term impact on our societies. To this end, socio-economic initiatives, where ethics embraces affordability, awareness, passion, curiosity, knowledge and inclusion, will guide us in shaping the food systems of the future.

We therefore commit to work on our life habits, as well as on the way we move, the way we consider time, the way we produce, and the way we transform and consume.

Habitats and Proximity

We are determined to rethink, re-plan and re-organize our habitats, our cities and, by extension, our food consumption and production systems to be pro-planet, sustainable and resilient. Our goal is to tear down the invisible physical and cognitive walls that traditionally separate urban and rural areas by linking sustainability with social proximity. Our goal is to create a positive cycle of citizenship and collective behavior embedded in a coherent normative framework creating new forms of social fabrics characterized by responsibility, connectivity and education.

We therefore commit to support and initiate actions aimed at breaking down barriers between sectors and the urban/rural divide by reorganizing our natural habitats according to the principle of subsidiarity and by linking food consumption and production to their proximity whenever possible. We also commit to supporting the development of cross-sectoral professional careers as means of promoting social change.

Diversity of Food Systems

We believe that embracing diversity will be a key unifying factor of future food systems. We believe that the needs of consumers’ personalized nutrition must be embedded at the very beginning of the chain, putting diversification at the heart of production systems. We advocate the same way of thinking along the entire food chain, allowing the construction of a tight-knit fabric of small economic, social and natural realities and networks. We believe that the more diverse, interconnected and informed this network is, the more resilient our systems will be to any forms of shocks.

We therefore commit to support and/or initiate activities leading to the establishment of such positive and forward-looking realities, while adapting them to their local contexts. We also commit ourselves to facilitate the connection and interaction of the existing small, independent and well-functioning realities with each other in order to expand and multiply them as a way to scale them up.

Renewed traditions and Empowered culture

We are aware that traditions are a fundamental building block of societies. We also understand that there can be a natural tendency to preserve and hold on to the status quo out of fear of change, if necessary, by the powerful means of social exclusion. Therefore, we see room for renewed traditions and ways of doing. We recognize that initiatives aimed at building a new pattern of tradition through food are inclusive and able to work well when our natural need for a sense of belonging is combined with the valorization of ancient knowledge as well as innovative approaches along the entire food chain.

We therefore commit to help in multiplying and supporting intergenerational initiatives that recognize the important role played by the youth, adapted to local realities and adapted for new forward-looking realities. We are determined to actively inform and spread knowledge to accelerate the shaping of a new, empowering culture that leads to renewed traditions. We demand that authorities exercise their political will to support these initiatives through incentives and norms with a sense of urgency.

Digitalization and Knowledge

We believe that shared values, trust, and empowerment processes can benefit positively when global connectivity and digitalization are used wisely. Communication, exchange, new standards, incentives and norms enable this connection and ultimately act as a glue between the world’s fabrics. We also believe that by creating more of these realities and reinforcing the density of the different fabrics, a unifying vision for a more sustainable, resilient and equal future will be triggered, communicated and put into action. While we acknowledge the importance of acquiring new technologies and more data, as well as the diffusion and valorization of traditional knowledge, we urge the need to take action based on the current available information, data, and technologies.

We therefore commit to support and/or create initiatives that aim to develop new universally comprehensible knowledge, improve access to know-how and education, and act as multipliers to connect local economies by combining new and old traditions, social proximity, sustainability and affordability.

Affordability and True value

We assume that concerns about climate change and the human fascination with immortality are two constants that will drive the food systems of the future, as signaled by the rapid evolution of the food industry’s response to the increasing knowledge of health determinants in terms of personalized nutrition. We know that food affordability is linked to existing inequalities along the chain in terms of social exclusion, income, education and awareness, despite food being recognized as a human right. We believe that the true cost of food should be calculated by taking into account its true value and its crucial contribution to wellbeing, its role in conserving nature and our habitats, and the need to create a regenerative economy. We aim at balanced food systems, in which every participant, in every food chain, is able to capture a fair and equal share of food’s true value.

We therefore commit to advocate for a change in the status of food from a commodity to a public good and accept the impact this could have on food prices. We also commit to drive and support initiatives that aim to integrate true costs and true values into the production, processing, and distribution of food to enable healthy and sustainable diets for all.

The Manifesto is available in various languages!

Credits for illustrations go to Fortesa Softa,  Dipl. -Ing. Arch. TU-Wien, Laboratorio Softa, BoT member