LOAF was founded in 2021 to conduct academic research in the fields of food, agriculture and local development, to produce data-based information and practice-oriented knowledge, which simultaneously includes the cause, effect and solution possibilities of the ecological crisis we are going through on a global and national scale. It was established to develop models for the emergence and dissemination of examples for sustainable agro-ecological agriculture practices, assurance and justice in accessing healthy food, strengthening local communities, increasing the management capacity of local governments, ensuring economic, social and cultural integration between rural and urban areas and combating rural poverty . The Laboratory sees academia and practice as a spiral that feeds and reproduces each other and implements its work with this understanding.