Through this lecture Elena Cogato Lanza presents the Swiss Plan Wahlen, a regime of intensive food production and food rationing, introduced during the Second World War in an effort to increase food self-sufficiency of the nation. The talk establishes a degree of symmetry between the historical struggle for food self-sufficiency and the contemporary effort to achieve food security. Elena Cogato Lanza identifies three points on an « active » heritage, and it shows how in her current research activity she tries to establish new analytical and perspectival tools in approaching food security from a design and planning point of view.