Meet Olga Szewczyk, a Visiting Fellow who just completed her fellowship in our Nature and Food Systems team through the School for Moral Ambition programme.

Food has always mattered to me; what ends up on the plate, as well as how – the ins and outs of this complex system behind the daily nourishment. Who grows it, how it moves from field to shelf, and whether the structures we have built around it actually work for the people and animals involved. I joined IEEP’s Nature and Food Systems as a fellow through the School for Moral Ambition, with the aim to dig into one specific corner of that system: why European farmers struggle to grow food-grade legumes commercially. Having spent a decade working within the corporate world and more specifically with fast-moving consumer goods (food and beverages), I felt ready to dive into the topic.

The short answer, as it turned out, was broader than I initially expected. What the research revealed was hinting at something structural: a weakened middle within the supply chain. Getting there required talking to people across the full spectrum of the sector: farmer representatives, non-profits, seed companies, cooperative managers, certification bodies. The complexity I encountered was both vast and, eventually, clarifying. People working on the same problem often see it through entirely different lenses, and bring in unique perspectives, all of which need to be taken into account. Holding all of that at once, and finding where the threads connect, and provide the most productive solutions, is something I will carry with me beyond this fellowship.

What I was most impressed by over the course of my time at IEEP, was how generously my new colleagues offered up their time, both within IEEP and in the broader Brussels network. I never felt like a temporary addition to the team, and my colleagues treated my work as their own, helping me shape it with patience and rigour at every stage. The networks they opened up made the research easier, culminating in a co-organised roundtable event. 

Following my six months at IEEP, I am leaving with a stronger conviction that building coalitions matters, that the structural problems in food systems are rarely solved by any single actor or instrument, and that persistence in connecting across sectors and standpoints is what moves things forward. That, and a genuine excitement about what European legume production can become under the right conditions.

IEEP has been collaborating with the School for Moral Ambition’s Food Transition Fellowship programme as a host organisation since its launch in 2024. The School for Moral Ambition is a nonprofit co-founded by writer Rutger Bregman. Its mission is to redirect top professional talent toward the world’s most pressing problems, by promoting moral ambition: the drive to excel through contributing to global solutions. With a community of 24,000+, SMA runs fellowship programs, coaching circles, and career transition support. It is funded through Bregman’s book, donors, and foundations. Funders have no influence over fellowship topics, program content, or host organisation selection.