The farmers' market on your doorstep with “Numero Amico”

Here is something you may be interested in if you want to buy locally from local farmers. Let's say you would like to do the shopping, but you struggle to carry grocery bags and you are not familiar with technology. A new subscription service has been designed to solve these problems and deliver fresh produce to your home. You can pick out the products of your choice from a paper catalog where all the participating farms are presented. You will place your order over the phone and you'll have your bag delivered on your doorstep at the agreed time. An ideal solution for senior citizens and people with reduced mobility, but also for those who do not have time to go to the local farmers' market for personal or work reasons. The project promotes sustainability and local agriculture and offers a wide range of products to a category of customers who could not be reached so far, while helping local farmers reach new markets.
The project was launched by a group of young students who, with this idea, have won the "From Farm to Fork" competition launched by ECIU (the European Consortium of Innovative Universities) in collaboration with the City and the University of Trento in the framework of "Nutrire Trento", which is part of the UniCittà collaboration. The participants in the challenge were given a month's time to come up with an idea to increase the sale of locally grown products in all age groups, raise awareness on food sustainability and promote healthier food choices. Now the City of Trento can develop the project.
The challenge was taken on by four teams made up of 13 students from the University of Trento, the University of Barcelona and INSA Group (National Institute of Applied Sciences of Lyon) from a varied of backgrounds: law, mathematics, economics, agricultural sciences, political science. For about a month, they worked from home and in person, in groups, and attended meetings with experts of the agri-food sector, solidarity economy and bio-districts, with teachers, representatives of local organizations, local farmers.
The goal of the challenge launched by the City of Trento and supported by UniCittà was to support and promote urban and peri-urban agriculture in Trento, encouraging direct relationships between local producers and final consumers, to shorten the food supply chain. The four teams were asked to find an innovative and sustainable solution from an economic, social and environmental perspective, taking into consideration the distribution and delivery channels of the products.
The four projects were presented on 20 December at Palazzo Geremia in Trento, when "Numero Amico" was announced as the winner. The members of the “Numero Amico” team were Ali Hamza, Francesca Virzi, Retchel Millama and Fernanda Sauca.

The three projects developed by the competing teams were also interesting. “Local Collabs” focused on the creation of an app capable of creating a network of restaurants, canteens and final consumers to improve the sale of locally grown products, reducing food waste and developing local partnerships. “Local food Trento” proposed the creation of an Instagram page to improve communication among local producers and the student community of Trento. And, finally, “Bitfarming: invest in local farming” launched the idea of an app to adopt a plant or a tree that would be grown by a local farmer to obtain part of the harvest.
ECIU challenges - “From Farm to Fork” is a challenge proposed by the City of Trento as part of UniCittà , one of the many promoted within ECIU University. Challenges are international competitions that involve groups of students from the 12 universities of the ECIU network of innovative universities, of which UniTrento is a member.
Private companies, public entities and non-profit organizations from all over Europe collaborate with the 12 universities - in this case, the University of Trento - and ask teams to solve real life problems or to find solutions to address global issues. All ECIU challenges aim to contribute to UN's SDG 11: sustainable cities and communities.
Students prepare to solve the challenges by earning university credits in subjects they need to learn to gain in-depth knowledge about. Then, international teams are formed that work to develop and present the most effective idea to solve the problem.
The School of Innovation, an interdepartmental facility that takes care of laboratory and innovative teaching, is responsible for organizing ECIU challenges for the University of Trento. In the last semester, in addition to “From Farm to Fork”, the School of Innovation together with Digital Innovation Hub Trentino Alto Adige also organized a challenge to help local SMEs to be more innovative and competitive. In previous semesters, the School of Innovation also worked with Sanifonds on a challenge to improve the sustainability of their business model. Other challenges are planned for the next academic semesters.