For policy makers, community leaders, local governments, designers and practitioners ready to move beyond strategy and learn how to activate thriving local food systems

The Food Systems Design Lab

Activating Local Food Systems through Place, Policy & Practice

Riomaggiore, Liguria, Italy | 27–31 January 2027

The problem

Communities around the world are producing food, writing strategies and investing millions in policy, yet too much wealth continues to leave the places where food is grown.

Too often, good ideas remain trapped in reports, funding cycles and institutional silos while regional communities struggle to build resilient local food economies. The question is no longer "What should we do?"

The question is:

How do we activate local food systems that create healthier communities, stronger regional economies and thriving landscapes?

A different kind of learning experience

The Food Systems Design Lab is not a conference.

It is not a study tour.

It is a living laboratory for people ready to move beyond discussion and begin designing practical pathways from policy to implementation.

Together we will learn from one of Europe's most extraordinary food landscapes, where communities have cultivated steep coastal terraces for centuries, demonstrating how food, culture, ecology and economy can evolve together.

Through field visits, conversations, collaborative design studios and shared meals, we will explore practical approaches that participants can adapt within their own regions.

Designed for

• Policy makers

• Local government leaders

• Community development practitioners

• Regional development organisations

• Farmers and food entrepreneurs

• Designers and educators

• Researchers

• Changemakers committed to local action

Together we will explore

• How to activate local food systems rather than simply plan for them.

• Redirecting food investment towards regional communities.

• Building food as civic infrastructure.

• Designing place-based initiatives that communities genuinely own.

• Bridging policy, practice and participation.

• Creating resilient local food economies through collaboration.

A challenge to policy makers

If the strategies we already have are not creating the outcomes our communities deserve...

What are we prepared to do differently?

This invitation is for those willing to move beyond incremental change and explore new ways of working, grounded in collaboration, place and practical action.

The future of food systems will not be designed by one organisation or one discipline.

It will be created by courageous partnerships that bring together government, communities, farmers, researchers and designers around a shared purpose.

Join a global network of pioneers

This Design Lab is the beginning of something much larger than five days in Italy.

It is the foundation of an international network committed to activating local food systems and sharing practical innovations across regions, countries and cultures.

Together we will develop new ideas, new partnerships and new ways of working that can be adapted and applied wherever people are committed to creating healthier, more resilient communities.

The challenges we face are global.

The solutions will always be local.

Let's learn from one another.

Let's build something that lasts.

Let's activate local food systems.

Limited to 15 participants

Riomaggiore, Liguria, Italy
27–31 January 2027

A Living Earth College international programme.