MILAN, Italy — Young people and their innovative ideas have the power to change the food system. The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition (BCFN) Young Earth Solutions! (YES!) program was established in 2012 to encourage young people – specifically, students under the age of 35 – to develop innovative solutions to problems within the global food system. 

The three winners so far are impressive. Federica Marra’s 2012 project, Manna From Our Roofs, rescues abandoned city buildings and transforms them into multi-layered urban farms incorporating roof gardens, window farms, and edible walls. In 2013, Makame Mahmud from Bangladesh and his team took the top prize with their idea, VALUE+, an integrated food network created to combat food insecurity in the urban slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh. And in 2014, Gianna Bonis Profumo from the University of Sydney, Australia, won the competition with her idea for Food and Nutrition Hubs, which will also serve as nutrition education centers where women in villages can learn optimal feeding practices, how to grow vegetables, and how to prevent and address stunting.

The fourth BCFN YES! opened Jan. 7 and BCFN will accept applications until May 31. To download competition rules and learn how to participate, visit www. bcfnyes.com/concorso.php

The finalists’ projects will be presented at the 7th International Forum on Food and Nutrition in Milan, Italy, which will be hosted within Expo Milano 2015 in late October. BCFN Foundation will cover their travel and lodging expense. The team or individual with the winning idea will receive 10,000 Euros (about $10,760), and BCFN will post the names and abstracts of each finalist project on its website.