Food Systems For An Urbanizing World

Food Systems for an Urbanizing World is a joint report prepared by the World Bank and FAO. It aims to stimulate discussion and suggest pathways to support local and national governments, and civil society and private sector actors in their efforts to improve the performance and capacity of food systems. The report describes the diversity and ever-changing nature of food systems, with interlinked traditional, modern and informal channels that respond to different market segments and different consumer preferences. It also underscores the importance of targeting support to the type of city and food system. The task is not an easy one. Data are weak and empirical analysis is weaker. As cities’ engagement in urban food issues is relatively new, the institutions, governance mechanisms and capacities needed for effective design, implementation and delivery of this agenda must be strengthened. Finding effective ways to prioritize, mobilize and coordinate contributions from multiple sectors will be essential for achieving food system goals.

The ways in which the rapid urbanization of the Global South is transforming food systems and food supply chains, and the food security of urban populations is an often neglected topic. This international group of authors addresses this profound transformation from a variety of different perspectives and disciplinary lenses, providing an important corrective to the dominant view that food insecurity is a rural problem requiring increases in agricultural production.

As people increasingly migrate to urban settings and more than half of the world's population now lives in cities, it is vital to plan and provide for sustainable and resilient food systems which reflect this challenge. This volume presents experience and evidence-based "state of the art" chapters on the key dimensions of urban food challenges and types of intra- and peri-urban agriculture. The book provides urban planners, local policy makers and urban development practitioners with an overview of crucial aspects of urban food systems based on an up to date review of research results and practical experiences in both developed and developing countries. By doing so, the international team of authors provides a balanced textbook for students of the growing number of courses on sustainable agriculture, food and urban studies, as well as a solid basis for well-informed policy making, planning and implementation regarding the development of sustainable, resilient and just urban food systems.

Sustainable Food System Assessment provides both practical and theoretical insights about the growing interest in and response to measuring food system sustainability. Bringing together research from the Global North and South, this book shares lessons learned, explores intended and actual project outcomes, and highlights points of conceptual and methodological convergence. Interest in assessing food system sustainability is growing, as evidenced by the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact and the importance food systems initiatives have taken in serving as a lever for attaining the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book opens by looking at the conceptual considerations of food systems indicators, including the place-based dimensions of food systems indicators and how measurements are implicated in sense-making and visioning processes. Chapters in the second part cover operationalizing metrics, including the development of food systems indicator frameworks, degrees of indicator complexities, and practical constraints to assessment. The final part focuses on the outcomes of assessment projects, including impacts on food policy and communities involved, highlighting the importance of building connections between sustainable food systems initiatives. The global coverage and multi-scalar perspectives, including both conceptual and practical aspects, make this a key resource for academics and practitioners across planning, geography, urban studies, food studies, and research methods. It will also be of interest to government officials and those working within NGOs. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/Sustainable-Food-System-Assessment-Lessons-from-Global-Practice/Blay-Palmer-Conare-Meter-Battista-Johnston/p/book/9781032083933, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This report presents insights and emerging lessons on food systems governance from the experience of nine cities that have developed urban food interventions – Baltimore, Belo Horizonte, Lima, Medellín, Nairobi, Quito, Seoul, Shanghai and Toronto – and draws on diverse sources of secondary information regarding the experiences of other cities throughout the world. It highlights entry points for the governance of urban food systems issues; common procedural and content-related considerations when addressing those issues; predominant governance models; and operational opportunities for future investment. Successful examples can encourage other local governments to adapt new approaches and innovate within their own context. Every city will need to navigate the political economy to customize their choices and interventions to local circumstances, priority problems and economic opportunities.

The World Bank knowledge product, “Food systems for an urbanizing world” (“Food Systems”), argues that future food systems will need to be increasingly focused on achieving four interlinked outcomes: generating remunerative agriculture, food processing and food service jobs; improving food security through improved access to affordable, quality food; producing and distributing nutritious and safe food; and becoming more sustainable and resilient. In response to these challenges, a diverse range of food system issues are being addressed by a growing number of municipal governments and local stakeholders in cities throughout the world. This report is a companion to the original report on Food Systems and as such represents the first step in discussing an urban food diagnostic and metrics framework and identifying data needs and innovative ways to collect information for this nascent urban food agenda. This introductory piece of work aims to propose a preliminary set of diagnostic questions and metrics for the outcomes and interventions as set forth in the report, Food Systems for an Urbanizing World.

For Hunger Proof Cities: Sustainable urban food systems

Since the end of World War II, every continent on earth has rapidly urbanized, with the worldwide urban population share rising from 29% in 1950 to 52% in 2010. This global pattern has been associated with and largely driven bysimultaneous growth in agricultural productivity, which "pushed" people off the farm by allowing output prices to fall, and in manufacturing and services, which "pulled" people into the more remunerative activities found in cities andtowns. Together, these processes drove dramatic increases in worldwide per capita income, which is always associated with higher urban shares in total population.The paper is built around the concept and empirical elaboration of the five food system transformations which are taking place with gathering speed in developing countries' agrifood systems:1. Rapidly rising urban populations, together with robust growth in per capita incomes,2. Profound changes in consumption patterns (the diet transformation),3. Rapid change in post-farm systems for processing, marketing, and regulating agrifood trade (the downstream and midstream food systemtransformation),4. The rise of rural factor markets especially for agricultural services (the rural factor market transformation), and5. Change in agricultural technology and in the size distribution of farms (the farm technology transformation).