Future Food Institute’s journey to “Future Earth”
With the end of 2023 comes the closing of an important chapter. It has been 10 years since the Future Food Institute was conceived. A decade that has seen us educate hundreds of thousands of people of all ages; it has allowed us to meet innovators, activists, great scientists, and trustworthy “food heroes” and to share pieces of the road with extraordinary people who have contributed their genius and passion to make our journey valuable. We have had the opportunity to make many mistakes and tirelessly continue to believe and experiment. We have surrounded ourselves with “imaginal cells,” sapient: some rebellious, some silent. We promoted critical thinking and innovation by incubating startups and organizing hundreds of hackathons. We have actively participated in primary international debates and mainly worked on the ground with communities, educators, farmers, fishermen, cooks, scientists, communicators, and administrators, listening and starting from needs to co-design solutions and prototype new development models together. Marathons, events, awareness campaigns, world days, conferences and unconferences, boot camps and retreats, global missions, and lately, many moments of silence and deep reflection.
A journey that lasted 10 years and more than a million kilometers ended in December with COP 28 and the Reboot the Future reunion. These two moments made me deeply reflect on what we have experienced and learned and on the necessary transformation we are experiencing.
The world economy and established models are blatantly conflicting with life and the diverse life forms on Earth.
Finally, the word “regeneration” is also entering the everyday lexicon of economics and finance, capturing interest even in institutional contexts that, until a few years ago, were considered “naïve.”
We need to rethink our development model, which cannot be done without an integral ecological approach. An earth ethos made of inextricable interweavings, of radical changes, at the social, political, economic, cultural, human, and environmental levels; an intervention on points that only on the surface seem heterogeneous, but which, instead, are all interconnected, capable for better or worse of contaminating each other.
We have realized that it is a matter of time!