On 13th December, the Green Knowledge Portal Twente organised a stakeholders meeting with a group of policymakers from different municipalities of Twente, educational institutions, and other relevant stakeholders on behalf of Green Metropolis Twente.
The participants got a presentation of the project and learned about good practices from the other partner regions. One interesting example was the American Farming School from the Greek region of Central Macedonia that is a training and demonstration facility in the city. It also represents a cooperation of agro & food partners to realise short value chains and aims at reducing the bureaucracy. Another good example that was highlighted in the presentation was Milan, in which the actors work on a multilevel cooperation to focus on agro & food in the city, e.g. via the high technology cluster or certificates for rice to demonstrate that it is a product typical for the region of Milan.
Both examples are good practices for Twente to learn from and use in the own good practices. Twente aims at innovation in the agro & food sector, more regional economy and more jobs in the region. It wants to establish that by connecting innovative questions from the region of Twente to the relevant educational institutes. The knowledge and researches are relevant for the region and can be directly implemented in Twente. One of the projects is Green and Edible City in Goor. This project aims at making all cities and villages greener and more heat resistant and make people more aware of the products they are eating and where they come from.
After the presentations, the participants discussed about the agro & food sector in Twente. They were asked how they perceive regional innovation or development and what the current situation is. There was a constructive discussion with information that the Green Knowledge Portal will use for the future projects. The Green Knowledge Portal works bottom-up and receives knowledge questions directly from the field. Results of the projects can be used to change policy instruments. This can be done through Green Metropolis Twente, where different important stakeholders are present. There are many individual projects and the challenge is to connect the projects and work together to innovate the agro & food sector within Twente. With the connection of all the stakeholders, in combination with new knowledge and the policy instruments, we can work on innovating the agro & food sector in Twente.
