Food System Vision Prize finalists Imke de Boer and Evelien de Olde: “The impact of this prize is enormous.”

De Boer and De Olde's vision includes a redesign of the current Dutch food system with attention for ecological boundaries, a sustainable policy and economic preconditions that allow producers and consumers to make sustainable food choices. De Boer and De Olde worked together with a team of farmers, representatives of nature and agricultural organisations, and scientists from Wageningen.

“We believe in a diversity of solutions”

De Boer: “The food system in the Netherlands has many positive aspects as there is a wide range of good food available at an affordable price. But the food system is also at the heart of a number of problems we face as a society. The current food system has a negative impact on our planet and does not guarantee everyone access to healthy food. In addition, food producers often receive low wages and we also fall short in the field of animal welfare. Taken as a whole, all these things require radical change.”

And this radical change requires a holistic vision: “Everything is connected,” says De Boer. “If you decide that we need to keep fewer animals in the Netherlands, the livestock industry will relocate to Eastern Europe and we will have made no progress as the demand for animal products will not have changed. You must therefore not only look at how to farm differently, but also at different forms of consumption and ways to reward farmers economically for tasks like landscape management.”

It must, for example, become easier for consumers to make healthy and more sustainable choices. While this can be done through education, the food supply, such as in supermarkets and at organised dinners, also plays an important role. “If local, fresh and plant-based food is readily available, the choice will become more obvious,” says De Boer. The scientists do not want to set strict requirements, however. “We believe in a diversity of solutions and are not providing a blueprint for the future,” says De Olde. “We're not saying: you can only keep a maximum number of animals. What we are saying is that you should find a balance, from a circularity point of view, between the number of animals and the amount of feed based on grass and residual flows from our food production.”

Connection to practice

De Boer and De Olde assembled a team of researchers, farmers and representatives of nature and agricultural organisations. This connection with people from the field was incredibly important in sketching a realistic and well-founded vision says De Boer: “From day one, we said to ourselves that we must be rooted in what is really going on. Because feasibility was also a criterion of the prize, we really wanted to show that we weren't simply making things up; it really is possible!”

After a long process, they were the only team from Europe to reach the final. “An enormous honour,” says De Olde. “It also gives us a sense of responsibility to come up with a systemic approach that is relevant to the whole of Europe.” The prize money helps them stay connected to their contributors. De Olde: “Farmers want to do something, but often have few resources. They can now submit a project application to us through which they can contribute to a better food system.”

From the newspaper to the UN

With the prize came momentum – interviews with the press, appearances on the radio, television and podcasts, a series of dialogues at the Pakhuis de Zwijger cultural platform. They also still receive daily e-mails from like-minded people. De Olde: “It’s then that you realise just how many organisations are committed to a more sustainable and healthier food system. Some may do so from a food perspective, others from a nature perspective, but we all have the same ambition.”

The duo also has the chance to promote their vision on the political front. For example, they talked to the Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, Carola Schouten, and helped prepare the government’s discussions in advance of the UN Food Systems Summit. “And I have twice made presentations to the European Union,” says De Boer. “That's one advantage of the pandemic: it all has to be done online from home. We would never have reached so many people if we had to travel everywhere.”

“It’s up to all of us”

The researchers do most of these activities in their spare time, along with many other initiatives for which they have been approached since receiving the prize. “That's down to the drive that Evelien and I have to change the food system, something that we are very committed to. But I can no longer do that alongside my position as chairholder,” says De Boer who is therefore taking a step back from the university and moving forward as a personal professor of Animals & Sustainable Food Systems.

Not that De Boer and De Olde can go it alone. “Realising the vision is up to all of us. We try to ask others as much as possible: what can you do? And we then attempt to back that up as best we can with scientific knowledge,” says De Boer. New resources are also needed for additional research to find answers to questions like: what are the boundaries of the Dutch ecosystem within which the food system must function? 

Will we be living in their envisaged food system in 2050? De Boer: “I hope so! Some people think it's not possible and I can sympathise with them. But then I think: if I don't believe in it, why should anyone else? Fortunately, the new generation is better trained in systematic thinking. They have learned to see how everything is interconnected and that gives me hope.”