WS1: Seeds, Biodiversity and the Right to Food: The Role of Municipal Food Policies

Cities and municipalities are emerging as critical actors in shaping food systems through public procurement, food strategies, urban-rural linkages, and local market infrastructures. However, these efforts often rest on a weak legal foundation in the European Union, as the right to food is not firmly embedded in EU legislation, and the EU human rights system is overly focused on political and civil rights. As a result, many local initiatives, while innovative, remain politically fragile and reversible, as shown by recent shifts in EU food policy debates. Also, the integration of environmental or social criteria in public procurement remains contested and uneven. At the same time, municipal food policies rarely consider seed systems and cultivated biodiversity, despite their foundational role in shaping food systems.
This workshop addresses this double gap: the lack of a strong rights-based anchor for food policy in the European Union; the limited integration of cultivated biodiversity into EU food policy frameworks and funding streams. The LiveSeeding project provides a concrete entry point to connect these dimensions.

Objective of the Workshop:

• Clarify the role of the right to food as an enabling framework for municipal food policies
• Show how seed systems and cultivated biodiversity underpin resilient food systems
• Identify entry points linking top-down frameworks and bottom-up practices

Expected Outcomes

• Clearer understanding of the role of seed systems and cultivated biodiversity in achieving resilient and adequate food systems
• Identification of policy, governance and funding gaps between EU frameworks and local implementation
• Concrete insights on how municipalities can act within current constraints, while contributing to systemic change
• Strengthened connections between biodiversity, food policy, and rights-based approaches, including alignment with ongoing EU-level initiatives (e.g. ECI)
• Increased recognition of the right to food as a missing enabling framework for food system transformation within a multilevel approach (including municipal food policies in the EU)