Cities’ Strategies for Sustainable Food and the Levers They Mobilize

Abstract

There is a growing realization of cities' vulnerability to the problems posed by the food system that are described in the chapter "Urbanization Issues Affecting Food System Sustainability". Reliance on globalized supply chains puts food provisioning arrangements at risk from environmental, political or economic disruptions. Cities lack productive space to produce all the food needed to feed their populations (Steel 2008, 2012), yet cities in less developed countries of the Global South will host most of the growth in world population, projected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050 (FAO 2009). Household food insecurity (or food poverty) is a major issue in many cities in developing countries, but incidence has also risen in the Global North, where the long-term effects of the 2008 economic downturn are still felt. Moreover, urban consumers are increasingly disconnected from the origins of their food (see chapter "Urbanization Issues Affecting Food System Sustainability"), and modern cities are obesogenic environments where calorie-dense/nutritionally-lacking food is cheap and available, but where opportunities for physical activity are limited (Morgan and Sonnino 2010). Consequently, diet-related ill-health has reached epidemic levels. While the capacity of cities to implement food policies has ebbed since the end of the Middle Ages (see chapter "History of Urban Food Policy in Europe, from the Ancient City to the Industrial City"), a small but increasing number of cities around the world are devising policies to address food-related problems or to mitigate their effects. This chapter describes the range of cities' aims in so doing, while drawing on existing literature to develop a broad typology and exploring relations between cities and their hinterlands, since many policies have repercussions that are felt beyond the boundaries of cities or involve external actors. The analysis in this chapter focuses on the levers and instruments that are employed by cities to meet their objectives, with attention to the importance of cross-domain working and determining

Creating a supportive public policy framework for urban agriculture

“…2 What is the appropriate scale or level of policymaking and implementation: local, regional, national or international? All four cases, and this is supported by comparative analyses of multiple cases (Baker and De Zeeuw, 2015;Halliday, 2019;Moragues-Faus et al, 2013), show that the municipal level is the most appropriate scale for creating a supportive policy framework for urban agriculture. This has to do with the specific place-based characteristics of urban agricultural activities, as well as with the overall trend of decentralization of regulatory responsibilities in domains that directly or indirectly relate to urban agriculture (Wiskerke, 2015).…”

“…Toronto's food policy has its origins in the public health domain, complemented with links to community development, employment, environmental management and social justice. These and many other examples make clear that there is a need and opportunity to embed urban agriculture and food policies in the urban policy domain and focus on the development of integrated food policies for sustainable and inclusive urban development (De Zeeuw and Drechsel, 2015;Halliday, 2019).…”

“…Gore, 2018), reviews of multiple cases (e.g. Baker and De Zeeuw, 2015;De Bon et al, 2010;Halliday, 2019;Hamilton et al, 2014;Mok et al, 2014) and edited volumes (e.g. De Zeeuw and Viljoen and Wiskerke, 2012;Wiskerke and Verhoeven, 2018).…”

“…But in these countries, urban agricultural policymaking is also done at the local level. The locally specific nature of conditions and challenges affecting urban agriculture requires place-based policies (Halliday, 2019). And, last but not least, there is a general tendency -in the global North as well as in the global South -for decentralization of regulatory responsibilities and policy implementation: "In the areas of health, education, and poverty alleviation, many national governments have begun to allow (...) local governments to operate the levers of policy and programs" (Cohen, 2006: 74-5).…”

Governance tools for urban food system policy innovations in the Milano Urban Food Policy Pact

“…Although cities have a long history of food policies, urban food policies are closely associated with innovativeness. Urban food policies declined with the rise of nation states (Daviron et al, 2019), and it has been a relatively new development for modern cities to engage in the development of food system policies (Halliday, 2019).…”