Validating the City Region Food System Approach: Enacting Inclusive, Transformational City Region Food Systems

Abstract

This paper offers a critical assessment of the value and utility of the evolving City Region Food Systems (CRFS) approach to improve our insights into flows of resources-food, waste, people, and knowledge-from rural to peri-urban to urban and back again, and the policies and process needed to enable sustainability. This paper reflects on (1) CRFS merits compared to other approaches; (2) the operational potential of applying the CRFS approach to existing projects through case analysis; (3) how to make the CRFS approach more robust and ways to further operationalize the approach; and (4) the potential for the CRFS approach to address complex challenges including integrated governance, territorial development, metabolic flows, and climate change. The paper begins with the rationale for CRFS as both a conceptual framework and an integrative operational approach, as it helps to build increasingly coherent transformational food systems. CRFS is differentiated from existing approaches to understand the context and gaps in theory and practice. We then explore the strength of CRFS through the conceptual building blocks of 'food systems' and 'city-regions' as appropriate, or not, to address pressing complex challenges. As both a multi-stakeholder, sustainability-building approach and process, CRFS provides a collective voice for food actors across scales and could provide coherence across jurisdictions, policies, and scales, including the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Habitat III New Urban Agenda, and the Conference of the Parties (COP) 21. CRFS responds directly to calls in the literature to provide a conceptual and practical framing for policy through wide engagement across sectors that enables the co-construction of a relevant policy frame that can be enacted through sufficiently integrated policies and programs that achieve increasingly sustainable food systems.

Roadmapping to Enhance Local Food Supply: Case Study of a City-Region in Austria

“…Taking into consideration the nefarious sustainability problems in agriculture, such as climate change and environmental degradations [55], it will be crucial to propose well-grounded plans to enable sustainable transitions of agri-food systems [56]. Most importantly, as Blay-Palmer et al (2018) [14] point out, future food systems need to increase access to food, generate decent jobs and income, increase the resilience of food chains, foster urban-rural linkages, promote the ecosystem and natural resources management, and support participatory governance to become more resilient and sustainable in the future. This article describes a case study that is a contribution in this regard.…”

“…Concepts such as alternative food networks, foodshed analysis and city-region food systems (CRFS) moved beyond the description and analysis of local food flows and focused on the interactions of local food resource flows with multiple actors of urban settlements, including consumers, representatives of political agencies and food activists [13]. CRFS focuses on relationships between cities and their surrounding areas and makes use of territorial approaches from rural studies, the concept of foodsheds, urban food governance literature and empirical observations of food policy initiatives [14].…”

City-Region Food Systems and Second Tier Cities: From Garden Cities to Garden Regions

“…Systemic changes are required to meet the needs of future generations in a sustainable way [37]. The (re)localisation or regionalisation of food systems is a trend that is often presented as an alternative to the 'globalised' food system and its presumed unsustainability [1,38]. A growing group of cities, many being signatory cities of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) feels responsible for the healthy and sustainable feeding of urban populations [39].…”

“…Cities are increasingly taking the lead in the food system transition with a focus on city-region-based food provision [1,2]. This trend is motivated by reasons of resilience, health and environment.…”

“…In short, the transformation to more resilient, healthy and sustainable food systems is, to a large extent, sought in regional production, shorter supply chains, and more conscious food consumption. Localised, and specifically plant-based, whole food diets (1) The historical development of the second-tier city and the region;…”