Huge prospect in ten years for growing small gardens with sprouts, strawberries, vegetables and other crops on rooftops, basements, balconies, abandoned industrial buildings or unused spaces in the urban environment finds a hipster.

The term is used colloquially to express people who follow alternative fashion trends in lifestyle, but in this particular case it is the name of the scenario of an innovative simulation game created by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center and implemented by the One Stop Liaison Office of the Region of Central Macedonia to ascertain the prospects of urban agriculture in ten years from today.

“The game features a Monopoly-like board, dice, chips and cards, and players take on the roles of a municipality, an NGO and two businesses. A citizen is also present who watches the game and votes. Each round corresponds to a three-year period and each player makes decisions according to the vision he has for the next decade,” Stavros Mantzanakis, technical manager of the One Stop Liaison Office, explains to APE-MPE.

He states that the decisions taken concern, for example, a product with a great impact on the market, a particularly profitable investment, a practice in line with the principles of ethics, sustainability or environmental and consumer protection. As for players, they are asked to serve roles that they may personally agree with or disagree with, cooperate with other player-agents, and make decisions based on scenario data or scarce resources.

The predictions of the hipster

The prevailing versions for the time horizon of 2033, i.e. ten years from now, predict, among other things, as a strong trend the cultivation of food from restaurants on rooftops, with benefits from sunlight and rainwater, or even on underground, with the use of artificial light and spray irrigation, or with the hydroponic method that replaces the use of soil with nutrient solutions.

This possibility can offer catering units the use of their own food and ordinary citizens the opportunity to mobilize themselves to produce their own vegetables, to utilize unused spaces in the city with a high environmental benefit, to benefit from social contact with others people who will do the same thing.

“The reduction in the cost of supplying vegetables, the mental benefits of cultivation and the use of urban gardens for the social reintegration of people who belong to vulnerable social groups are included in the advantages of the scenario,” notes Mr. Mantzanakis.

Urban gardens in Aarhus, Denmark – Roadside gardens in Brazil

Describing good practices already implemented abroad, he mentions the two hundred self-organized urban gardens that exist in Aarhus, Denmark, with the support of only two people from the local municipality and with great social benefits from this activity, especially in a society in which the institution of the family is not as strong as in Greece. In small villages in Brazil, residents can grow vegetables for their own consumption on the side of major roads, while a university in Norway has managed to produce drinking water from toilets. In Thessaloniki, after all, the urban vineyard of the Municipality of Thessaloniki and the small urban and peri-urban vegetable gardens operate with the same philosophy.

Dynamic re-emergence of urban agriculture in the pandemic period

The trend of urban agriculture has made a dynamic re-emergence during the pandemic, simultaneously with the pressures on resources such as land, water, energy and food as it contributes to the production of quality and organic products, increasing nutritional adequacy and food safety, social interaction and well-being. At the same time there have been pressures to intensify the use of genetically modified foods and the production of protein from insects, trends which, according to the hipster scenario, will be strong in 2033 as well.

The game, which is called “scenario exploration system” and belongs to the category of serious games for future simulation (serious games for future simulation) “came to life” recently during the 3rd Thessaloniki Design Week, an event that had as its subject the various manifestations of Desing in gastronomy. It is also available from the One Stop Liaison Office to anyone interested.