Potato losses, value chain efficiency and food security

On November 20, 2015, the Bee Collective, Wicked Problems Plaza, Postharvest Network and the Food & Business Knowledge Platform organize a Wicked World – Bee Collective session about “Potato losses, Value chain efficiency and Food security” in the Nailab, Nairobi, Kenya. The session forms part of the Bee Collective Festival in which different wicked problems will be addressed on several locations all over the world and a new organization form (Pop Up Company) will be set up to start acting upon these wicked problems.

In the Bee Collective session the Wicked World Problem of potato losses in Kenya will be unraveled by a group of about 20 people with different backgrounds, ideas, expertise and positions. The group is led by trained facilitators of the Art of Hosting who are using techniques based upon the Wicked Problem Plaza methodology (a methodology designed by the Partnership Resource Centre, a department of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam). Participants in the session will together search for a common ground upon which they will start building new ideas for possible solutions.

The new ideas will be taken on by the Bee Collective Swarm, a network of people in and around Bee Collective. This Swarm can turn the ideas into social businesses which are organized according the model of a Decentralized Collective Organization (DCO), called “Pop Up Companies”.

The Bee Collective Swarm works in a super democratic way. Everyone who participates and takes on an active role, has a say in the Pop Up Companies they work in and will get a share from the profits being made. People in the Bee Collective Swarm are like bees. They can spread their expertise over various Pop Up Companies and together they form a large collective Swarm intelligence. They may operate in different teams and Pop Up Companies, using the democratic and sharing rules.

In the Wicked World – Bee Collective session about “The reduction of Potato losses, and improvement of Value chain efficiency and Food security” the central question will be:

“How will we together re-think the potato value chain in order to
reduce food losses and improve chain efficiency and food security?”

This perspective has been chosen because we know that the reduction of food losses and improvement of food security can only be realized by placing the issues in a broader context and addressed through collective action throughout the value chain.

The organizers aim at gathering a group of various actors throughout the potato value chain as well as all surrounding actors that impact the value chain directly or indirectly with different opinions and visions on the problem. In the ideal situation the participants give a 360 degree view on the problem. Also (social) entrepreneurs and start-ups who have the intention to start a Pop Up Company are invited.

During the event on November 20, all different Wicked World – Bee Collective sessions we will connected via livestream on the Bee Collective website.