
Food Education for the Future
How can teachers and schools participate in creating a future sustainable food production in northern Scandinavia? Researchers from Luleå University of Technology will find out together with the County Administrative Board of Norrbotten, Kalix municipality and actors in Finland and Norway in a large project supported by EU Interreg Aurora.
The green transition is about more than technology change. In particular, it is about changing our production and consumption of food. Although we in the Nordic Region have good opportunities to produce food in an environmentally sustainable way, our food production is declining. At present, a large proportion of the food we eat is imported, which increases our carbon footprint and our environmental impact in other countries. Low food security is also an important preparedness issue in a world of security concerns. Food knowledge is largely traditional experiential knowledge linked to places. Knowing the origin of food and how it is produced is a basic democratic knowledge that everyone should possess. It is therefore important that schools give children and young people the opportunity to develop relevant knowledge about sustainable local food. This is also in line with the intentions of learning for sustainable development and corresponds well with the goals of the 2030 Agenda. With increased knowledge of the food chain, young people's interest in training and working in the green industries can also increase.
All actors in the project collaborate in all parts of the project but do so with different competencies and from different perspectives. Luleå University of Technology is represented by the educational subject and will therefore have a special interest and responsibility for the educational issues. For example, it will be important to highlight what traditional food knowledge in the northern areas of Sweden, Norway and Finland can be and how it can be implemented in a school context. Luleå University of Technology, through its teacher training, is also an important contact node towards Norrbotten's schools.
The overall aim is to strengthen teachers' skills and schools' ability to teach sustainable food production. This will be done by:
- Creating knowledge and facilitating knowledge dissemination about the connection between local food production, sustainable development and self-sufficiency in food.
- Combining modern knowledge with traditional knowledge on food production.
- Develop and support networks between food producers, teachers and other educational actors.
- Create opportunities for schools to visit and interact with local food producers, such as farmers, fishermen, horticulturists or reindeer herders.
In addition, the project will develop teaching materials and a course for teachers, food producers, catering staff and procurement officers in municipalities.
Luleå University of Technology, the County Administrative Board (Norrbotten's food strategy Nära Mat) and Kalix municipality, together with actors from Finland and Norway, have been granted a total of just over SEK 19 million by Interreg Aurora for the project Food education for the future, of which about SEK 4.5 million goes to parts led by Luleå University of Technology. The project is co-financed by Region Norrbotten. The project manager is the Finnish Natural Resources Institute (Luke).
Food education for the future runs until 2026.
The project Food education as a pedagogical tool, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, is also running in parallel.
Project participants at Luleå University of Technology:
- Gunnar Jonsson, project manager and assistant professor of pedagogy
- Eva Alerby, Professor of Education.
- Björn Emmoth, PhD student in pedagogy and principal of the cultural school in Kalix municipality and the municipality's coordinator in the project.

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