Contribution short abstract:

Achieving sustainability requires reshaped food supply chains. University of Limerick is developing an Agri-hood campus as part of its holistic sustainability mission. The paper focuses on the stories that motivate the permaculture development and participants are shaped by working the land.

Contribution long abstract:

University of Limerick has developed a systemic Sustainability Framework 2030 through the engagement of >70 staff across its campus community, facilitated by its Future and Foresight team. This strategic initiative seeks to demonstrate the value of permanent adaptive responsiveness and synergetic in/ter/ventions to ongoing change and towards achieving sustainability.

Under the framework’s societal strand, which sits beside governance, ecology and economy, one of the mission labs focuses on the development of an Agri-hood campus. It aims to recast the food supply chains to offer healthy, regional produce including growing a substantial amount in a permaculture garden on campus. A mission lab offers a space for experimentation and knowledge creation, learning and skills development across disciplines and sectors to address a wicked problem. To motivate students, staff and partners to commit to this long-term Agri-hood project, it is essential to conjure up captivating stories that relate to the indigenous knowledge of the seasonal’ waves of plenty and scarcity’ and talk of the traditional tools and skills for working the land organically. It is hoped that in turn, the participants will learn and tell stories about the place of humans in nature. The paper is considering those narrative developments.