This new online modeling tool - PARCEL (for Promoting resilient, civic local food systems) - was conceived as an engagement tool, to enable consumers, citizens, inhabitants, civil society organizations, and local authorities to better understand how the forms of farming and farm land use directly impact jobs, food provision, and the environment.

Developed by Terre de Liens, the French National Federation of Organic Agriculture (FNAB) and BASIC, PARCEL invites citizens and elected officials  understand the current challenges of the food sector by helping to build and illustrate different scenarios on 3 of the main levels of food sustainability:

 the distance between production and consumption of food products.
 the type of farming (partial or total organic production).
 the type of diets (more or less meat consumption).

As a result, users can readily see how much farmland is needed to produce organic food for local food consumption everywhere and how a change in one or several of these criteria directly impacts local farming, communities and climate change. This kind of visual modeling helps underline the vital message that there is not enough farmland in France to feed the population with local organic food, unless we change our diets, and in particular reduce meat consumption.