Hannes Van den Eeckhout

Je kan mij contacteren over duurzame, agro-ecologische, biologische en regeneratieve landbouw- en voedselsystemen. In het bijzonder over de transformatie van het voedselsysteem bij ons en in Latijns-Amerika en Oost-Afrika. Ik ben geen bio-ingenieur, geen micro-bioloog of landbouw-expert op plant-, boerderij- of bodemniveau. Ik ben actief in de waarde-keten, het food web, de korte keten, organisatieversterking, marktintegratie voor kleinschalige boeren, voedselsysteemverandering en meer sociaal ondernemerschap in regeneratieve landbouw en voeding. Dat laatste doe ik sinds 2023 in Oeganda, met Rootical, een startup studio om Oegandese ondernemers te ondersteunen in het ontwerpen en opstarten van ondernemingen die er op gericht zijn het voedselsysteem te veranderen. I am a Master in Business Engineering and a sustainable food systems practitioner with 12+ years of experience in working with farmer networks, agroecology and social entrepreneurship. I strongly belief in the promotion of territorial, direct and organic value chains as a motor to sustainable rural development. I have lived and worked five years in Peru, working on topics like organisational strengthening, farmer training programs, direct food sales and marketing, the farmer-cook alliance, collective marks, participatory guarantee systems, business plans, advocacy and food security in mountain communities. The next 5 years, I have worked with Boeren & Buren (a.k.a. La Ruche qui dit Oui!), an online platform to enhance direct sales in local food communities in order to empower people to build a fair food system. I launched the initiative in Flanders (2015) and The Netherlands (2017) and subsequently managed the team and the development of the network in Belgium and The Netherlands. In 2020, the Belgian and Dutch network consisted of 130 food communities, involving 1000+ local producers and 250,000 consumers, hitting a record GMV of more than 14M€. Currently in Uganda, I am working on sustainable city food systems and connecting Agroecology and Social Entrepreneurship. I am fundraising to launch a start-up studio to enable Ugandan social entrepreneurs to build and own their regenerative food and agriculture companies in Uganda as of 2023.