WikiExpo

final report


Introduction

WikiExpo was conceived as an answer to the question: What will happen to all the
knowledge, insights and conclusions that will be shared under the umbrella of the Milan
Expo in 2015? It was a unique occasion that emphasizes the centrality of food to all aspects
of human existence. More specifically for the Future Food Institute, where the main topic
of research is food innovation and design driven innovation in the food sector.
The project came as a humble, ambitious, yet diligent attempt to not only capture the
knowledge legacy of Expo, but to keep the momentum of the discourses carried out there
alive.

Beyond the attractions of the Expo site, and the city of Milan during the World Fair,
important discussions were held, not only from Academia, but also policy, industry, civil
society, art and literature. There we so both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge
was keeping track of all these discussions and their outcomes, through our ambitious
project that was run by a highly dedicated team. Moreover, important global events that
are highly relevant to Milan Expo took place in 2015, such as the Addis Ababa conference,
COP21 in Paris, and the launching of the post-2015 Agenda.

Our work during the Expo semester consisted of two main streams. The first was mapping
out the events that were organized during the Expo semester that are relevant to “Feeding
the planet and energy for life”. Each entry details out the event details, venue, and a
description of the event. We classified the events according to the elements of the seeds
of disruption map [production, manufacturing, distribution, shopping, eating] in addition
to macro-themes that reflect major challenges [food security, food safety, climate change,
Water, Sustainability, poverty] or areas of specific concern [innovation & technology,
sustainable agriculture, precision farming, family farming, urban farming, food processing,

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territory, gender, and youth].
We used Mapper to create to visualize the connections between these events, and how
often these themes were discussed during Expo. Connecting the dots in such a manner
allowed us to identify the complexity of the interrelations of these themes. There was
considerable overlapping, since one event could fit under more than one category.

To reach the aim of preserving the legacy of Expo, we gathered pictures, articles, and press
releases, as well as attended events and collected the presentations and sometimes videos
from these events. After Expo was concluded, we found ourselves with 150 Gigabytes of
data waiting to be processed. Each of the files that represented the content of the events
was identified as a “knowledge unit”.

As a next step to the work we did during 2015, we analysed these “knowledge units” with
regard to their relevance to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were
adopted last year on the 25th of September. Another option was to use the Milan Charter
as a framework for our analysis. When looking at both frameworks we pointed out so
many things in common. The Charter of Milan makes a point of identifying the role of
different stakeholder groups. This feature was maintained in our analysis as we also
highlighted the affiliation of the speaker who delivered or authored the documents we
analysed. This helped us establish a matrix of “Who said what”, what was the most
relevant to the SDGs to this document. For themes as vast as Food security, or
Sustainability, it was important to understand different ways these topics were addressed
by pointing out three main keywords that reflect the standpoint of the speakers. Also, how
were these talks concluded? Different speakers described challenges, best practices or
recommendations. Other speakers made statements or promoted for a product or a
service, whereas others called for action to be taken.

We identified the main SDG of relevance for each knowledge unit, After careful analysis of
the content of each of the knowledge units at hand we designated three keywords from
each file that synthesize the content, in terms of the major topics that were raised. This

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helped us understand how the speaker/organization who made the presentation approach
the topics of the SDGs e.g. zero hunger, climate, gender equality…etc.

In the following sections we will illustrate the results of our analysis in the light of these
questions , as a first step for describing the knowledge legacy of Milan Expo 2015.
However, it is important to mention that these values reflect the material that we actually
have on our drive, which was either provided by the speakers or available to download on
the internet, and amount to almost 200 events. This figure is significantly less than the
number of the events we have mapped on our online platform (824 events), and the
number of the events that actually took place (including show cooking and tasting). The
events that were attended and documented by our team of four rapporteurs were chosen
based on: 1) The knowledge sharing potential (CNR events, EU events and UN events), 2)
Whether the content of the event fits the requirement of preserving the Expo legacy (e.g.
World Food day, the Irish and Italian ministers of agriculture making a statement on
refugees, International congress of world agronomists, etc…) 3) Giving priority to events
that discussed innovation or had implications for the future of food.

The SDG’s and Expo

Expo Milano 2015 involved more than 200 participants, among countries, international
organizations, corporations and non-governmental organizations. All participants had the
chance to make a real contribution not only to the Expo theme but also to the success of
the event itself, making it a significant space for the exchange of experienc, innovation and
best practices.

In the words of the Pemranent Italy representative of the UN Mr. Sebastiano Cardi , Expo
Milan 2015 was described as “a workshop for new ideas to promote industrial sustainable
development in the poorest countries of the world”1.

1 Source: http://www.onuitalia.com/eng/2015/05/26/sdgs-italy-expo-as-workshop-to-promote-ldcs-development/

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On the aftermath of Expo, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei declared during their event in
Rome, under the umbrella of the Milan Charter initiative, that the reflections and
experiences that have been developed during the Milan Expo need to be consolidated and
expanded within the spirit of the Sustainable development goals of the United Nations.
This would create a legacy of a culutral, technical and scientific value that can translate
into new trajectories, action plans and projects. This is the same logic we had, when we
decided to adopt the SDGs as a framework of analysis for the Expo discourses.

The ratification of the SDGs and Agenda2030 by the Un member states has been n
important focal area of discussion within the discourses held at Expo ever since its
inauguration. The Milan Charter was a unique example that remphasized Italy’s
commitment towards acheiving the SDG’s especially by recognizing food as a human right,
which is something not all UN member states could agree on.

The present work is an endeavour that contributes to the Knowledge for Development
K4Dev agenda, which was launched in late 2016 as a complementary effort to agenda
2030:

“We consider that the SDGs of the United Nations are directly associated with knowledge -
defined as a human activity creating its own future, rather than a physical asset. Peace,
poverty reduction, good health and clean water all depend on a systematic and integrated
approach to knowledge. This includes the elements of a complex knowledge ecosystem,
including access to knowledge, learning, sharing, co-creating, innovating, applying,
utilizing, reflecting, renewing, maintaining and preserving knowledge.”2

Why knowledge management, and why now?

2
Statement from: “Agenda Knowledge for Development:Strengthening Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals”
page 13. Knowledge for Development Partnership 2017

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Now, almost in the middle of 2017 we will celebrate two years since the kick off of the
Milan Expo. There could be no better timing to take stock not only of the knowledge
generated during the Expo semester, but also of the immediate aftermath and how
different actors took this energy farther in Italy and beyond.

In the age of network economy, access to knowledge, and the spread of knowledge have
been accelerating at unprecedented rates. We have reached the understanding that we
need alternatives to the business as usual, that are viable, and have the potential to
gradually replace outdated practices. Alternative best practices require an intensive
knowledge input to create them in the first place, and offer realistic solutions to end users.
This intensive knowledge input needs to be contextualised and targeted to different
segments of actors, who need to learn how to use the knowledge, and to work together
towards acheiving sustainability goals. Knowledge should be mediated towards problem
solving using a designerly approach that adresses actual needs and fosters a culture of co-
creation. Hence, in the present work we are presenting our first attempt at knowledge
management based on what we learned from the Expo 2015 semester.

Statistical analysis

While the following values do not reflect all of the content of the events held at Expo, they
are an important proxy indicator of the discourses that were held, and the subtopics that
were used to orient these discourses. Our team of four rapporteurs was present for most
of the major events that were the highlight of expo,

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Figure 1 The distribution of SDGs in the documents analyzed from WikiExpo archives

As seen in Figure 1 almost all of the 17 SDG topics were raised during Expo events. The
themes that were addressed the most where those that fell under SDG2 on achieving zero
hunger. This included discourses on sustainable agriculture, on food security, food safety
and the right to food.

The second most important topic was SDG 12 on responsible production and consumption,
which is closely related to food security, especially with regard to Food waste and waste
management.
The third topic was SDG15 concerned with life on earth, encompassing themes of
biodiversity, landscape ecology, and environmental conservation.
SDG3 with focus on Health and wellbeing came next followed by SDGs 8 and 9 on
economic growth and Industry innovation respectively.
SG2: Hunger

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The second of the sustainable development goals is putting an end to hunger, achieving
food security, improving nutrition through sustainable agriculture. Hunger holds entire
populations back from achieving sustainable development, where people’s health and
living standards are greatly compromised by malnutrition. According to the latest SOFI
(state of food insecurity in the world) report3 in 2015 793 million people were still
undernourished, even though this figure has declined since the previous year. While the
Mellenium development goals were aiming at reducing the percentage of
undernourishment by half, the second SDG aims at eradicating hunger from the world and
leaving no one behind.

Making food available calls for a renewed attention to agriculture, the single largest
employing sector in the world that supports the livelihoods of 40% of the world
population, according to FAO statistics, small farmers supply the world with 80% of the
food consumed in the developing world.

Figure 2 Recurrence of Keyword clusters under the topic of SDG2

3 Key messages from the SOFI 2015 report http://www.fao.org/hunger/key-messages/en/

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Naturally the majority of the events were those related to the theme “Feeding the planet”.
Hence the most recurrent theme was that of SDG2: Ending Hunger, totalling 154
presentations that hold relevance to SDG 2.
Food security is used in this work as an umbrella term for concepts such as food
sovereignty which was mostly discussed by civil society organizations. Other subtopics
included fighting global hunger, Food aid, Food banks, Food deserts, Future of Food, Food
hubs, Food insecure people, and Food security pillars. These multiple “shades” of food
security portray the diversity of contexts that either call for a solution for food insecurity,
or in some cases to describe practical solutions to hunger and food insecurity. Nutrition
and Malnutrition were excluded from this category.
One of the most notable events on food security was the Global conference on food
security that was organized by the EU. The two day conference addressed Food security
from the economy view point and took place prior to a week long conference for
agricultural economists. It goes without mentioning the Woirld Food Day event where Ban
Ki Moon the Un secretary general was present emphasizing social protection as an
important driver of food security. The World Food Day event at Expo has also concluded
the annual committee on world food security CFS.
Additionally the Zero Hunger challenge was launched allover the Expo site to raise the
visitors’ awareness about the role we can all play to contribute to facing this challenge, as
mentioned by the UN Secretary General.

The second subtopic was innovation and technology. “Feeding the planet” by consensus
requires novel approaches and methods, which could be also seen in how digital
technology was showcased throughout the universal exposition. Starting from the
integrating Big Data for precision agriculture, innovative crop irrigation technologies, early
warning systems, breeding technologies, encouraging farmer led innovation,
transdisciplinary approaches and multistakeholder engagement. The aspect of socio
technical integration was further emphasized through participatory innovation, sience

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based innovation and technology transfer. GM technology and Nano technology were
among the the new technologies discussed at expo. Other aspects of innovation dealt with
plant protection and protecting plant health as well as achieving water security in drylands.

Considering the number of events organized at the EU pavilion and events organized by
the UN agencies, the discourse on policies came third under this theme. Discussions
ranged between creating new policies such as a “Common Food Policy” for Europe,
whereas other discussions tackled the reform of the EU’s Common agricultural policy
(which took a category of its own ) particularly the greening measures. Under this theme
too, there were different approaches to the role of policies, as responsive to the needs of
the wier public, supportive to activiites of identified importance. Other aspects included
the options and instruments that policies make available for stakeholders, especially with
regard to risk management, regulating the use of technology, market volatility and social
protection.

Nutrition/Malnutrition dichotomy here is interesting. Nutrition mostly referred to events
where speakers highlighted the importance of balanced nutrition and health promoting
nutrition, such as dietary diversity and dietary quality, discourses on functional foods, and
gut microbiota. The series of events organized at the Cereals and Tubers cluster “Sapore
del Sapere” made particular emphasis on appropriate nutrition and healthy eating”.
Another line of discussion under this category included nutrition security and nutrition
driven food systems, which positioned nutrition as a leverage for policy design and
planning. With regard to Malnutrition, the dicsourses mostly foused on non
communicable diseases that are influenced by nutrition, as well as strategies to counter
malnutrition, addressing child mortality and child nutrition in particular, under
nourishment.

Plant health is another crucial contributor to food insecurity, as pest and disease
outbreaks, under the effect of climate change cause severe yield reduction or even crop
failure. The recently discovered bacterial disease in southern Italian olive groves caused

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Xylella fastidiosa was an important topic for discussion. Plant health was also an important
topic for discussion in a conference organized by the EU Directorate General for agriculture
and rural development DG AGRI, and was also discussed within organic production
framework.

The Social Aspects category is related to Human Rights, especially how adequate,
nutritionally balanced and culturally appropriate Food is advocated as a human right. Civil
society events at Cascina Triulza paid particular attention to this issue especially in follow
up to Expo dei popoli. Events related to the Milan Charter also discussed this topic,
particularly at the Angola Pavilion, with the participation of IDLO organization and Milan
Food Policy institute. The sub category also comprises social protection strategies for food
insecure individuals, social solidarity and spiritual aspects. The latter topic was particularly
celebrated in presence of religious leaders from the main Religions and Mr. Maurizio
Martina the Italian minister of agriculture.

Agroecology and Organic farmers were highly emphasized as two alternative disciplines to
the hegemony of the agri-industrial model. The Biodiversity pavilion was particularly active
in organizing events that raised awareness about the importance of organic farming, and
the increasing importance of Agroecology as a new paradigm. Civil society organizations,
especially during Expo dei Popoli that was organized outside of the Expo site emphasized
their political position through agroecology principles described by Miguel Altieri from
Berkley University, as an inherent paradigm to peasant farming. The Joint research center
of the European Commission dedicated two days to exploring this subject. The French
pavilion dedicated one of their weekly seminars at the pavilion to the topic, in addition to a
video presentation inside the pavilion as a part of a national action plan4 to mainstream
agroecology by 2025.

4 For information on the agroecology project of the French ministry of agriculture visit:
http://agriculture.gouv.fr/sites/minagri/files/projet_cle487ee8_agroecologie.pdf

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Knowledge management was another important subtopic that was advanced as an
important prerequisite for innovation and policy design. An interesting term was used to
describe agroecology as “cultivating knowledge per hectare” as opposed to the industrial
agriculture core strategy of producing calories per hectare. Interestingly, the importance
Farmers’ knowledge or traditional knowledge have been emphasized as important
elements to contribute to ending hunger. Knowledge management has also been
mentioned as an important constituent of rural development strategies, and as an
important driver for innovation in terms of sharing and transfer of knowledge.

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SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

There can be no sustainable development without a long term vision for efficient
managent of resources and energy. The scope of this SDG is the responsible consumption
and production of Water, Energy and Food5.
Doing more with less is not enough to acheive sustainability. There is a need to do better
in terms of efficiency with the diminishing resources available. Achieving this goal calls for
concerted action among stakeholders in the supply chain including, but not limited to,
producers and consumers.

Figure 3 Recurrence of Keyword clusters under the topic of SDG 12

5 Facts and figures http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-consumption-production/

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The second largest category as shown by the analysis we performed was grouped under
SDG12. The Milan Expo set a trend for global Mega events by targeting sustainable waste
management as a strategic management goal, as we learned by interviewing Gloria Zavatta
who told us about the
implementation of the strategy and tools for the sustainability of the Expo Milao 2015
event. The strategy included and integrated Management System (environment. health
and safety, social. Circular economy principles applied to the Universal Exposition of Milan
2015 (green procurement, food recovery, waste management and separate collection,
reuse of goods. Not only has this been the highlight of the publication released by the
Italian Ministry of Environment , Land and Sea to document the legacy of expo entitled the
Expo We Learned6. The Milan Expo has set a strategy for sustainability for mega events.
The earliest mega event to follow this trend was the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro in
2016. Minister Maurizio Martina, the Italian minister of Agriculture described this strategy
as a replicable best practice, whereby everyone can do their part to realize a world with
zero waste and zero hunger7

Responsible consumption and production has been particularly evidenced in the Swiss
Pavilion, which delivered a powerful lesson to the Expo visitors as the slices of dried apple
and sachets of coffee that were available for the visitors were completely gone well before
the end of Expo.
The Swiss pavilion has also hosted the kick off event for the Sustainable Food Programme8
of the UNEP’s ten year framework program 10YFP for sustainable consumption and
production SCP. This program has been specifically mentioned in the first target of SDG12,
and even though the SFS program is more linked to SDG2, we grouped themes of Food
Waste, Water management, and soil conservation under SDG12. Moreover, the first target
of SDG12 is implementing the 10YFP program to encompass all countries with the
leadership of developed countries.

6Chapter 4 from the publication “The Expo We Learned” describes the innovative waste management strategy of Expo:
http://www.minambiente.it/sites/default/files/archivio/allegati/impronta_ambientale/the_expo_we_learned_EN_web.pdf
7 Source: http://www.sustainableinnovationinsport.org/news-and-updates/2016-rio-olympics-food-waste-programme
8 Background documents on the objectives of the SFS programme:
http://www.scpclearinghouse.org/sites/default/files/10yfp-sfs-brochure-en.pdf

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Sustainable consumption and production as we found in our analysis requires that all the
actors along the value chain should act responsibly and in a concerted manner which calls
for transparency.
When agriculture is examined through this lens, issues of resource efficiency arise.
Precision agriculture has been showcased throught the Expo semester, for potentially
minimizing waste and optimizing resource use (energy and water). Other issues related to
agriculture included environmentally responsible practices such as conservation
agriculture, crop rotation, and integrated farming systems (rice-fish systems) and
preserving soil fertility. Most importantly, responsible production means supportive
measures for small holders and strong farmer organizations that facilitate knowledge
transfer and best practices in order to face environmental challenges and manage
increasingly diminishing resources.

The second most important topic is water management. In October 2015 the Committee
on global food security adopted the recommendations of the High Level Panel of Experts’
HLPE report on the role of water security9 in food and nutrition security. Responsible
consumption of water, including the responsible use of water in food production are a
necessity for sustainable development, especially with the challenges of growing world
population and changing climate patterns. Precision technologies including satellite
managed technologies, such as IRRISAT have been among the most promising solutions for
increasing the efficiency of water management in agricultural systems. Other water
management strategies include water recovery and water saving. The Kuwait pavilion
hosted a number of important events that dealt with the issue of desalination, and water
scarcity, and to some extent also Qatar.

The theme of minimizing Food waste in particular, as the most relevant to this SDG and
one of the most prominent themes at Expo, as evidenced in the Zero pavilion, and several
important events, most notable of which was “Fighting Food waste, Feeding the planet”

9 The report of the High level panel of Experts “Water for food security and nutrition”: http://www.fao.org/3/a-av045e.pdf

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conference on the 15th of October, which was organized by the EU directorate general for
Health (DG Santé).
The bottom line in the waste management discourse is shifting the perception of waste as
a burden to a resource. This was evidenced in the work presented by Gunter Pauli at the
world coffee forum in October 2015. Technological innovation should aim at devising
strategies that reduce waste along the value chain, diagnose and categorise waste.
Valorisation of fruits and vegetables has been particularly highlighted as one of the best
practices to reduce waste.

Although pollution has not been explicitly featured in our analysis under this SDG,
environmental impact is a discourse that is continuously brought forth to raise awareness
about adopting a responsible approach to consumption and production. Speakers at
different events that belong to this category mentioned an ecological footprint of food
waste as the unseen cost of production according to the business as usual. This category
included discussions on environmental degradation, ecosystem health and continuity,
lifecycle assessment of food products and the advantages of shortening food chains or the
Km Zero trend that gives consumer increased trust in the quality of the products.

A responsible approach to consumption and production should also take account of
Climate Change, abolishing unsustainable practices, prioritising animal welfare in animal
production operations, and most importantly food safety. While these issues fall under
the domain of production, consumers share an important part of the responsibility.
Consumer choices, including their diets, buying activity, and waste reduction practices are
of utmost importance in this equation. Furthermore, consumers need to be engaged in
the process of making decisions within the value chains that affect the consumers’ choices,
in other words, multistakeholder processes need also to take account for consumers’
input.

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SDG15 Life on Land

Sustaining life on earth could have never happened if it wasn’t for the resilient natural
ecosystems that support all sorts of living organisms through various niches. Thus, feeding
the planet in the future depends to a great extent on how successfully we can “sustainably
manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and halt
biodiversity loss” as stated in the 15th of the SDGs. The intricate diversity of niches in
natural ecosystems provides a safety net for the whole ecosystem that can restore the
functionality of the ecosystem after shock events, such as those triggered by irregular
climate patterns. It is estimated that forests support the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people
and are home to 80% of terrestrial species10.

Figure 4 Recurrence of Keyword clusters under the topic of SDG 15

Agriculture in general has been an important contributor to the loss of biodiversity, and
with the advent of the green revolution the increased dependency on chemical inputs has
exponentially contributed to biodiversity loss. Since there are so many activities in the

10 Life on Land: why it matters http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/15_Why-it-
Matters_Goal15__Life-on-Land_3p.pdf

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agricultural domain, we connected the dots between several practices that support ‘life on
land’ within agriculture such as apiculture, organic farming, and other practices based on
agroecology principles, where the practice of agriculture as a human behaviour is in
harmony with the natural cycles.
However the discourse on agricultural modernisation as a necessity changes in irrigation
patterns and finding effective solutions for increasing soil fertility and production is often
sceptical of the idealistic narrative that includes the previous practices. Discussions went
further to analyse the implications of these concerns over biodiversity loss with regard to
restructuring agricultural policies and sustainably contributing to long term food security.

The second category in this topic was soil fertility. While there are attempts for soilless
agriculture to make up for the depletion of soil fertility in natural agro-ecosystems, there is
progressively more consensus among experts that a healthy soil is indispensable for
supporting natural ecosystems and human livelihoods.

The year 2015 was the FAO’s international year of Soils. The majority of discussions at
Expo, according to our analysis highlight the role that soils play as carbon sinks, where
atmospheric carbon gets trapped in the form of organic matter within soil. Biochar has
been repeatedly discussed as a promising practice to sequester carbon and enhance soil
fertility. Desertification and land degradation have been extensively discussed during the
UN World day to combat desertification and drought on the 17th of June. The most
important take away of these discussions is that desertification is not irreversible, and it is
up to the multiple actors involved to take action to reverse its effects. Countries such as
Kuwait and Qatar participated in an important event oeganized by the Global Dryland
Alliance at KIP pavilion that reiterated the same guiding principle: Desertification is
Reversible. Although Iraq did not participate at Expo

Biodiversity is the key issue to the discourse on life on land. While agriculture had a
negative impact on biodiversity, the latter holds the key to the sustainability of agriculture
through the genetic material used for crop improvement and domesticating plant varieties

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to be included in food items. Such a complex relationship reveals the urgent need to
rethink how we practice agriculture. The world congress of agronomists held at Expo
devoted a discussion table on Biodiversity as a foundation for livelohoods for small
holders, who are both custodians and beneficiaries of these resilient ecosystems. The
European Food Safety authority EFSA provided a set of recommendations at a conference
in October 2015 that included the role of animal welfare strategies in supporting
biodiversity.

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SDG3 Good health and wellbeing

This goal is about ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. The
targets for this SDG focus mostly on childrens’ and women’s health, as an essential
foundation for sustainable communities. Yet, child mortality still exists in large numbers.
Stunting due to malnutrition is also common in developing countries.
Ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all at all ages is important to building
prosperous societies. Access to safe food and proper nutrition is essential for maintaining
good health, and if health is a human right, it goes without mentioning that access to good
food by that definition is also a human right.

Figure 5 Recurrence of Keyword clusters under the topic of SDG3

Perhaps the clearest example for the impact of diets on health is the spread of non-
communicable diseases such as obesity and heart disease as a result of unbalanced diets.
The other face of malnutrition manifests as long term deficiency of essential nutrients,

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resulting in conditions such as child stunting. Between those two extremes there is a wide
range of conditions provoked by poor nutrition. In the present work we discussed the issue
of nutrition under SDG2 themed material. Health promoting nutrition requires balanced
and carefully designed diets. The Mediterranean diet was promoted in many events as a
model for a sustainable and balanced diet, that is also ecologically adapted, and entails
eating more plant based food items. According to Roberto Capone, from the
Mediterranean Agronomic institute of Bari, there were at least 80 events about the
Mediterranean diets.

There was also considerable attention given to Nutrigenomics as a promising technology
for devising personalized diet plans that target individual needs according to the genotype.
One important example of the events that framed food as medicine was organized by the
Italiant association of environmental medicine at the Expo Centre, where religious figures,
representatives from San Patrignano and CA’ Garda and civil society organizations
showcased the importance of food for overall wellbeing, including mental and physical
health.

Nutrition is crucial particularly during childhood, as it determines the healt of an individual
for the rest of their life. Additionally, appropriate nutrition during old age can significantly
minimize the effect of degenerative diseases, and allow senior individuals to enjoy active
aging, as evidenced in the conference “Feeding the memory to feed the generations”.
Healthy ageing has also been highlighted as a leverage point for social innovation at the
‘Dietary strategies for healthy agening’ conference, particularly in the presentation of
SiforAGE ‘Social innovation on Active and healthy aging for sustainable economic growth’

The Milan charter committed the signatories to combat malnutrition and obesity. Several
important conferences were organized to discuss solutions for obesity extensively. During
the feeding fair hackathon that was organized by the future food institute at Expo, our
team chose a number of topics to leverage on based on input from different pavilions.

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Along the lines of health and wellbeing the 14th European Congress of Psychology that
took place in Milan in July 2015, we could only consult the proceedings of the research
that highlighted the importance of food for psychological wellbeing.




SDG8 Decent work and economic growth

As mentioned earlier, agriculture is the world’s single largest employer11, it is also a fact
that 78% of the world’s population who live in extreme poverty live in rural areas,
with the majority of the population dependent on agriculture for their livelihood.
These percentages indicate the absence of sustainable economic growth
mechanisms that secure inclusive employment.

Creating the conditions that stimulate the economy within the food sector, without
losing the focus on the most vulnerable groups of producers and retailers depend
on creating a suitable business ecosystem. Governments need to work on
acheiving market stability, and taking account of the impact of global trade on local
trade and vice versa. Producer groups, especially those working on a small scale
need to join forces using the cooperative model to empower one another to
compete in the market. Territorial production and branding are also important
elements for generating jobs and income. The Expo semester had a considerable
number of young entrepreneurs who successfully leveraged on territorial
excellence through their business models.

11 Source: http://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/goals/goal-8/en/

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Figure 6 Recurrence of Keyword clusters under the topic of SDG8

This category is significantly smaller than the previous ones. Topics related to market
stability/ Market price volatility were domninant in the discourses related to economic
growth in addition to new models for employment, growth and doing business are needed.
Cooperatives was the next topic, with an important event organized by the International
Cooperative association, sponsored jointly by Japan and Brazil, with Dame Pauline Green
as one of the main speakers, showing the common pitfalls of cooperatives and the criteria
for success. Cooperatives offer a real opportunity for small producers/ small holders to
organize themselves and achieve considerable resilience within the market. It is
commonly said that 70% of the food consumed worldwide comes from small farming
operations, which to some extent explains the significant attention given to small holders
in the discourses grouped under this theme.
There has also been particular synergy between fairtrade and small producer cooperatives,
which is also why fairtrade was among the main topics.
Trade in its broader sense was an even more widely discussed topic, especially with the
concerns expressed by European constituencies, and in Italy particularly over the TTIP12.

12 http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/about-ttip/

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Most of the discourses on this particular topic were brought forth by civil society
organizations. However, as we were reporting from the Global Food Security conference
organized at Milano Bovisa Campus, the question was raised once about this subject.
With regard to entrepreneurship, Expo was the opportunities for many innovative startups
in the agrifood sector to showcase their business models and innovative products/services.
Among the major events that addressed the rise of startups in the agri-food sector where
the Social Entrepreneurship World Forum at Expo site and IULM and an event organized by
the UNIDO-ITPO at Cascina Triulza in August 2015 to award young innovators.

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SDG 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster
innovation

While the focus of this SDG is mostly the development of infrastructure to support
economic and human development, Expo showcased various aspects of innovation, which
we found most suitable to include under this SDG. Innovation in the agrifood sector holds
significant promise for increasing employment, and increasing the access of small scale
enterprises to financial services, and integration into value chains and markets. The topics
included in our analysis under this SDG refer to innovation in practice as an emergent
phenomenon as well as the culture and enabling structues that support innovation,
beyond the policy frameworks and market mechanisms that were included under SDG8.

Figure 7 Recurrence of Keyword clusters under the topic of SDG9

The world Exhibition has been customarily a showcase of human progress, evidence by
innovations. Novelty per se is no longer an interesting goal to pursue, considering the
number of challenges that call for effective solutions to face them. There were different
classes of innovation that we clustered in one category. It is important to recall the term

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innovation is a buzzword that has been used extensively after mentioning its importance
of the competitiveness strategy of the European union according to the Lisbon treaty.
Most importantly one of the most notable events organized at Expo was the startup
forum, which also hosted representation from Google. Expo has also contributed to
valorizing a Startup visa that allows entrepreneurs to bring their activities to Italy. In
addition to competitions, like the hackathon held at TIM pavilion on the Internet of Things
late October, Feeding Fair late September, and the Innovation Challenge during early
October.

Our analysis pointed at different variants of innovation of which we mention the following:

Technological innovation: The 2015 Expo witnessed, especially for Italy the emancipation
of scientific breakthroughs from the confines of academia and boldly tackling
entrepreneurship, and delivering goods and services based on the latest scientific findings.
Besides the considerable number of events organized by the National research council
CNR, the Joint research center at ISPRA organized a special two day event on supporting
researchers in developing their research finding into lucrative business.

Digital Innovation: There was a significant focus on the monumental role played by
Information and communications technology in imporving food access, improving
nutrition, and food distribution to mention but a few aspects in this increasingly important
sector. The internet of things, and the use of big data were the subject of a hackathon
organized by at the TIM pavilion.

Research Innovation: Scientific research is increasingly pushing the frontiers of what we
think is possible. Innovation in scientific research was also highlighted in the advancement
of genetic studies, for genetic improvement of plant and animal species, genomic selection
within breeding programs, genetic traceability and genetic disease diagnosis.

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Economy Innovation: As it became a necessity to revisit the ways we do business, there
was a number of events that discussed circular economy as a new model for valorizing
resources, and closing both energy and resource loops in a manner that enhances
efficiency and reduces waste.
The EU had already introduced the term bioeconomy, or knowledge based bioeconomy as
a tool for promoting multifunctionality of European agriculture. Another term is blue-
green economy that was mostly advocated by Gunther Pauli, who indeed introduces
solutions for valorizing waste into useful products, which he presented at the World Coffee
forum.

Social innovation was another important point of discussion, known in Italy as “terzo
settore” or third sector. One of the protagonists of Social innovation in Italy is San
patrignano. Other successful examples for social innovation were presented at Cascina
Triulza.

Last but not least is the importance of Design as an emerging discipline for accelerating
innovation. Design driven Innovation has been the topic of discussion at the EU pavilion in
late June with a special event dedicated to the topic. Further and more in depth
discussions were held at Milano Bovisa campus during the ICED International conference
for Engineering design, and although the research projects had little relevance to the food
to food and nutrition, so many interesting ideas could contribute to improving human
lives, hopefully in the short term we will see design driven innovations related to how we
experience food.

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Conclusion

“To have a firm persuasion, to set out boldly in our work, is to make a pilgrimage of our
labours, to understand that the consummation of work lies not only in what we have done,
but who we have become while accomplishing the task.” David Whyte, Crossing the
unknown sea.

As Expo itself has been an unprecedented milestone in the history of food related
discourses, in spite of the numerous critiques. We had the responsibility to bring this
knowlesge to the forefront, connect the dots and draw out conclusions. We believe our
first attempt to do so has been successful, yet the present work is only scratching the
surface of what Expo knowledge legacy is about. However it provides a first of its kind
analysis based on the post 2015 UN development agenda, shedding light on the main SDG
themes that were featured in the majority of the discourses held at Expo and the concepts
that were brought up for discussion under these themes.

We aim through this work to draw the attention that the work is yet to be completed,
which requires more collaboration, and that although the semester of Expo has been
concluded well over a year ago, the shared responsibility to preserve and use this
knowledge should continue.
Should we continue to do this work, our analysis will go further to the ontological mapping
of the concepts brought under every SDG. Although this is a laborious endeavour, it will
allow us to deliver more actionable ideas for policy makers, civil society advocates,
entrepreneurs, and researchers. We aim to connect the dots between actions and actors
from different disciplines and different geographical areas.

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The road to Dubai 2020
The theme of the next Expo in 2020 is “Connecting minds, creating the future” as
announced by BIE13. Given the centrality of food to the discourses on sustainability,
economic growth, and human development, which has been evident during the past Expo,
there are many ways to establish connections with the upcoming one.
This present work is only a seed and should we develop it further as mentioned in the
previous section, we will be able to connect minds across different disciplines and different
geographies, and sprint towards a future where technology can truly support human’s
intellectual and physical growth.

13 See the interview on the BIE (Bureau International des expositions) website: http://www.bie-paris.org/site/en/expo-
dubai-2020/dubai-news/83-news-announcements/846-expo-dubai-2020-2020-dubai-2020-expo-2020-bie-world-expo-
world-fair-uae-dubai-trade-center

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