Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

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Renforcement des systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains pour assurer la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition dans le contexte de l’urbanisation et de la transformation rurale

 À la demande du Comité de la sécurité alimentaire mondiale (CSA), le Groupe d’experts de haut niveau sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (HLPE-FSN) a élaboré le rapport intitulé «Renforcement des systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains pour assurer la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition dans le contexte de l’urbanisation et de la transformation rurale». Le rapport du HLPE-FSN sera présenté à la cinquante-deuxième session plénière du CSA en octobre 2024.

Par le biais de cette consultation électronique, le HLPE-FSN souhaite obtenir votre avis sur le champ d'application proposé pour ce rapport et sur les questions indicatives ci-dessous.

CHAMP D'APPLICATION ET JUSTIFICATION

Près de 60 pour cent de la population mondiale vit actuellement dans des centres urbains (DESA, 2018; Acharya et al., 2020). Ceux-ci sont considérés comme des moteurs de croissance et d’emploi qui produisent plus de 80 pour cent du PIB mondial, mais qui sont également confrontés à d’énormes défis pour ce qui est de garantir l’accès de tous les résidents aux services essentiels que sont la santé, l’éducation, le transport et la nourriture (ibid.). La population urbaine connaît un accroissement particulièrement fort en Afrique et en Asie. Les 15 villes à la croissance la plus rapide au monde sont toutes situées en Afrique. Parallèlement à cette urbanisation, on assiste à un « découplage géographique » (Langemeyer et al., 2021) des villes par rapport aux sources d’approvisionnement alimentaire, en raison de l’utilisation des terres urbaines et péri-urbaines réorientées vers des « usages plus rentables ». Ainsi, les villes perdent rapidement les terres agricoles péri-urbaines, qui leur fournissaient depuis toujours des aliments frais et sains. Les zones urbaines connaissent également une fréquence plus élevée de phénomènes météorologiques extrêmes qui compromettent la subsistance et les revenus des populations, tandis que les inégalités entre populations urbaines se creusent (Pelling et al., 2021). Du fait de ces évolutions, les zones urbaines et péri-urbaines concentrent également les risques d’insécurité alimentaire et de malnutrition, comme on a pu le constater lors de la pandémie de covid-19 (voir, par exemple, Rede PENSSAN, 2021), encore exacerbés par les catastrophes naturelles et les conflits. Dans le même temps, ces zones regorgent de ressources et constituent des centres d’éducation, de technologie et d’innovation, d’offre de services sanitaires et sociaux, ainsi que de production, de transformation et de distribution d’aliments, autant de rôles qui peuvent être renforcés.

Dans les quartiers pauvres des villes, les activités économiques et commerciales informelles sont souvent essentielles à la sécurité alimentaire, mais elles sont généralement négligées au niveau politique et réglementaire. Les systèmes alimentaires informels comprennent un réseau complexe de fournisseurs, de transporteurs, de colporteurs, de détaillants et de vendeurs de rue et de marchés, en plus des agriculteurs, et rend les aliments plus accessibles et plus abordables pour les consommateurs urbains. Or, ces acteurs du secteur informel s’appuient principalement sur leurs propres ressources et capitaux et ne bénéficient, pour renforcer leurs entreprises et en garantir la qualité, que d’un faible soutien politique en termes d’intelligence du marché, de transport et de logistique, de chaînes du froid ou d’installations de réutilisation des déchets (Tefft et al., 2017). En fait, en l’absence de planification précise des systèmes alimentaires, la vente et la consommation d’aliments hautement transformés augmentent dans la plupart des centres urbains, tandis que le commerce local qui garantit des aliments sains et frais à des prix abordables, et souvent en plus petites quantités, y est négligé, ce qui a contribué à la création de ce qui a été appelé « des déserts alimentaires » . Ce phénomène a eu des répercussions négatives sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Peyton, Moseley et Battersby, 2015; Battersby, 2017; Acharya et al., 2020).

Cette incohérence stratégique se traduit par un manque général de coordination entre les politiques et les acteurs concernés par la sécurité alimentaire, l’environnement, etc. et la planification urbaine. Cette situation est encore exacerbée par le manque général de données, d’analyses et d’éléments empiriques dont on a besoin au niveau des villes pour éclairer la prise de décisions sur les questions d’alimentation urbaines et péri-urbaines. C’est pourquoi il est difficile, pour les décideurs, de planifier, de hiérarchiser, de concevoir et de suivre les interventions dans les systèmes alimentaires des zones urbaines et péri-urbaines. De plus, les gouvernements et les systèmes d’alerte rapide face aux risques de famine n’ont pas non plus été aussi performants dans le suivi de l’insécurité alimentaire dans les zones urbaines qu’ils l’ont été dans les zones rurales, au-delà d’indicateurs très élémentaires tels que les prix des aliments (Moseley, 2001; Krishnamurthy, Choularton et Kareiva, 2020).

Les villes peuvent jouer un rôle essentiel dans l’élaboration de politiques relatives aux systèmes alimentaires qui renforcent leur résilience de différentes manières. Elles peuvent, au besoin, s’approvisionner en aliments cultivés localement ou de manière régénérative, faciliter la production urbaine et péri-urbaine durable d’aliments nutritifs, éviter le gaspillage alimentaire et en renforçant les investissements dans la bioéconomie circulaire (définie au sens large comme une économie fondée sur l'utilisation, la réutilisation et la régénération durables des ressources naturelles), créer des marchés alimentaires inclusifs en investissant dans des infrastructures qui permettent aux petits commerçants et détaillants de commercialiser des produits alimentaires plus sains. Elles peuvent également jouer un rôle pour favoriser la résilience en atténuant les effets négatifs du changement climatique et en s'y adaptant (HLPE, 2020 ; Heck et Alonso, 2021).

L’agriculture urbaine et péri-urbaine est une option importante qui peut avoir des effets positifs sur la diversité alimentaire, la qualité des espaces urbains et l’action et l’autonomisation des communautés. Or, dans la plupart des villes, notamment dans les pays du Sud, cette agriculture ne bénéficie que d’un soutien public limité. Au contraire, la réglementation en vigueur dans les villes et la valeur marchande croissante des terrains limitent les possibilités de production locale. Selon une enquête récente de la FAO, les autorités municipales jouent un rôle énorme pour identifier et mettre en relation les acteurs des systèmes alimentaires et favoriser ainsi l’émergence d’initiatives locales innovantes propres à améliorer la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (FAO, 2020). Face aux conséquences dramatiques de la pandémie, par exemple, les jardins potagers ont fourni des compléments alimentaires sains et nutritifs ainsi que des services écosystémiques (Lal, 2020). Les marchés locaux se sont multipliés, tout comme les livraisons à domicile de paniers d’aliments frais par des producteurs familiaux et les initiatives de dons alimentaires aux communautés à faibles revenus. De nombreux habitants des zones urbaines, en particulier les migrants, les sans-papiers et les travailleurs informels, ont été contraints de s’adresser aux banques alimentaires et aux organisations caritatives, ce qui a grandement nui à leur dignité et à leur agencéité (Rao et al., 2020). Ces expériences soulignent l’importance et le potentiel que revêt la dimension territoriale des systèmes alimentaires pour la réalisation du droit humain à l’alimentation (Recine et al., 2021).

Compte tenu de l’importance sociale et économique des zones urbaines, il est impératif de relever les défis posés par l’urbanisation en matière de transformation rurale pour « reconstruire en mieux » après la pandémie de covid-19, et les perturbations des chaînes d'approvisionnement causées par la guerre en Ukraine, les conflits internes et les catastrophes naturelles. Les politiques doivent impérieusement s’attaquer à la pauvreté et aux inégalités, renforcer la résilience et l’inclusion sociale et favoriser la pérennité des moyens d’existence. Les besoins spécifiques des divers contextes ruraux et urbains, les différences entre les différents types d’environnements urbains (par exemple, les mégalopoles et les villes situées dans des zones essentiellement rurales), ainsi que les liens entre ces éléments dans les relations urbaines-rurales, doivent être pris en compte dans la formulation des politiques alimentaires. Ainsi, le Nouvel Agenda Urbain appelle à intégrer la sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle dans la planification urbaine et territoriale (ONU-Habitat, 2016). Le rapport pourrait également explorer les questions spécifiques concernant la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition auxquelles les villes sont confrontées dans les situations de conflits, de catastrophes naturelles et d'autres crises, en particulier en cas de dépendance vis-à-vis des importations alimentaires et de vulnérabilité à la volatilité des prix.

Une analyse plus approfondie des systèmes alimentaires est nécessaire dans le contexte de l'urbanisation et de la transformation des zones rurales pour garantir le respect du droit à la sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle, dans ses six dimensions (HLPE, 2020). Le rapport pourrait notamment étudier le potentiel des marchés territoriaux et informels, de l'économie circulaire et des chaînes d'approvisionnement plus courtes pour renforcer les liens entre la production et la consommation alimentaires urbaines et péri-urbaines. Le rôle des environnements alimentaires dans les zones urbaines est particulièrement important, compte tenu de la coexistence de la distribution organisée (supermarchés) avec les marchés territoriaux et informels, et des effets néfastes de la supermarchandisation qui évince les petits commerces alimentaires et/ou informels (Peyton et al. 2015). Ainsi, certaines parties des villes, souvent les plus pauvres, sont devenues des "déserts alimentaires" pour les produits frais et sains, ce qui affecte les régimes alimentaires urbains, déjà caractérisés par une priorité croissante accordée aux aliments transformés et prêts à consommer. En outre, les centres urbains, et notamment les zones d'habitat informel, sont souvent caractérisés par le manque d'infrastructures de base telles que l'accès à l'eau potable et au réseau d'égouts. Il faut donc accorder une attention particulière aux besoins en eau et en assainissement par rapport à l'utilisation des aliments dans les zones urbaines et péri-urbaines.

Dans le même temps, les zones urbaines et péri-urbaines abritent des innovations intéressantes pour la production, la transformation et la distribution de denrées alimentaires, telles que les jardins verticaux, les groupes d'achat éthiques et les innovations en matière de marketing, qui pourraient être reproduites dans d'autres contextes. Pour renforcer le rôle des systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains, il est essentiel de réfléchir à l'architecture de la gouvernance en matière de sécurité alimentaire et de nutrition, et notamment à la manière dont les conseils municipaux, les experts en urbanisme et les autres partenaires peuvent s'engager auprès des acteurs traditionnellement impliqués dans les systèmes alimentaires et les politiques de sécurité alimentaire et de nutrition afin de renforcer les synergies. Certaines des mesures politiques recommandées ces dernières années pour renforcer le rôle des systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains portent sur la promotion d'un accès équitable aux terres et aux ressources agricoles productives pour les petits producteurs. Elles incluent également l'investissement dans les infrastructures rurales et urbaines, le développement de marchés territoriaux et de chaînes d'approvisionnement courtes, la priorité donnée aux personnes vivant dans la pauvreté dans les villes et les zones rurales pour qu'elles aient accès à des aliments nutritifs et à des conditions de vie plus saines, et l'anticipation de l'avenir interconnecté de l'urbanisation et de la transformation des zones rurales (HLPE, 2020 ; Heck et Alonso, 2021).

À partir des résultats du Groupe de travail à composition non limitée (GTCN) du CSA sur l'urbanisation, la transformation rurale et les implications pour la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (CFS 2017/44/6 et CFS 2016/43/11), de publications récentes et de débats d'orientation, le rapport explorera ces questions et formulera des recommandations de politique générale à l'attention du CSA.

QUESTIONS POUR ORIENTER LA CONSULTATION ÉLECTRONIQUE SUR LE CHAMP D'APPLICATION DU RAPPORT HLP-FSN

Le HLPE-FSN sollicite votre avis sur le champ d'application proposé pour le rapport «Renforcement des systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains pour assurer la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition dans le contexte de l’urbanisation et de la transformation rurale», et vous invite en particulier à :

A

Faites-nous part de vos commentaires sur les objectifs et le contenu proposé pour ce rapport, tels que décrits ci-après.

Pensez-vous que le champ d'application proposé est suffisamment large pour permettre d'analyser et de discuter des questions clés concernant le rôle des systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains dans la réalisation de la sécurité alimentaire et de la nutrition? Y a-t-il des lacunes ou des omissions majeures?

B

Faites-nous connaître les bonnes pratiques et les expériences réussies en matière de renforcement des systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains dans le contexte de l'urbanisation et de la transformation rurale, y compris dans les situations d'urgence ou de conflit.

C

Veuillez partager la littérature récente, les études de cas et les données qui pourraient aider à répondre aux questions suivantes :

1.            Quels sont les principaux goulets d'étranglement qui freinent la contribution des systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains à la sécurité alimentaire et à la nutrition?

2.            Comment transformer les systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains et les rendre plus équitables et accessibles, aussi bien pour les acteurs du système alimentaire qu'en termes de sécurité alimentaire et de résultats nutritionnels?

3.            Comment renforcer la résilience des chaînes d'approvisionnement alimentaire urbaines, formelles et informelles, locales et mondiales, afin de garantir la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition en milieu urbain?

4.            Quels changements faut-il apporter à la planification urbaine pour mieux soutenir toutes les dimensions de la sécurité alimentaire, y compris le soutien aux droits de l'homme, à l'agencéité et à la durabilité? Comment renforcer l'action des acteurs locaux dans les systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains? 

5.            Comment les autorités nationales et municipales peuvent-elles renforcer les potentialités des villes à faible émission de carbone, inclusives, relativement auto-suffisantes et résilientes pour améliorer la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition à la suite du changement climatique et d'autres crises?

6.            Quelles sont les politiques les plus appropriées (et les lacunes des politiques existantes) dans le cadre du continuum rural-urbain pour résoudre les problèmes de régime foncier, d'expansion urbaine sur les terres agricoles et de concurrence croissante pour les ressources naturelles?

7.            De quelle manière les systèmes alimentaires urbains et péri-urbains peuvent-ils garantir la satisfaction des besoins alimentaires et nutritionnels de groupes spécifiques de personnes, tels que les migrants, les personnes déplacées à l'intérieur du pays, les enfants, les adolescents, etc.?

8.            Les marchés territoriaux peuvent-ils renforcer la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition des populations urbaines, et quels sont les avantages et les défis qu'ils représentent?

9.            En quoi l'incorporation de pratiques liées à l'agriculture résiliente au climat et à l'économie circulaire dans l'agriculture urbaine et péri-urbaine peut-elle apporter des co-bénéfices pour tous sur le plan climatique et renforcer la résilience climatique?

10.         Comment les citoyens peuvent-ils être impliqués et habilités à conduire des processus inclusifs, transparents et participatifs pour les transformations urbaines, en assurant les synergies et la complémentarité avec les conseils municipaux?

11.         Comment les expériences des communautés urbaines pour améliorer l'accès aux aliments frais et aux régimes alimentaires sains peuvent-elles inspirer des politiques publiques plus larges?

Les conclusions de cette consultation seront utilisées par le HLPE-FSN pour élaborer le rapport, qui sera ensuite rendu public dans sa version préliminaire pour consultation électronique, puis soumis à un examen par les pairs, avant d'être parachevé et approuvé par l'équipe de rédaction du HLPE-FSN et le comité directeur.

Nous remercions par avance tous les collaborateurs pour avoir lu, commenté et fourni des informations sur la portée de ce rapport du HLPE-FSN. Les commentaires sont les bienvenus dans en anglais, français et espagnol.

Le HLPE-FSN se réjouit d'une riche consultation!

Évariste Nicolétis, Coordinateur HLPE-FSN

Paola Termine, Chargée de programme HLPE-FSN

 


BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Acharya, G. Cassou, E. Jaffee, S., Ludher, E.K. 2020. RICH Food, Smart City: How Building Reliable, Inclusive, Competitive, and Healthy Food Systems is Smart Policy for Urban Asia. Washington, DC, World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/35137   

Battersby, J. 2017. Food system transformation in the absence of food system planning: the case of supermarket and shopping mall retail expansion in Cape Town, South Africa. Built Environment, 43(3): 417-430.

FAO. 2020. Cities and local governments at the forefront in building inclusive and resilient food systems: Key results from the FAO Survey “Urban Food Systems and COVID-19”, Revised version. Rome.

Heck, S. & Alonso, S. 2021. Resilient Cities Through Sustainable Urban and Peri-Urban Agrifood Systems. Montpellier, France, CGIAR. Resilient-Cities.pdf (storage.googleapis.com)

HLPE. 2020. Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security. Rome. http://www.fao.org/3/ca9731en/ca9731en.pdf

Krishnamurthy, P. K., Choularton, R. J., & Kareiva, P. 2020. Dealing with uncertainty in famine predictions: How complex events affect food security early warning skill in the Greater Horn of Africa. Global Food Security, 26: 100374.

Lal, R. 2020. Home gardening and urban agriculture for advancing food and nutritional security in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Food Security, 12: 871-876. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-020-01058-3

Langemeyer, J., Madrid-López, C., Mendoza Beltrán, A. & Villalba Mendez, G. 2021. Urban agriculture — A necessary pathway towards urban resilience and global sustainability? Landscape and Urban Planning, 210: 104055. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204621000189

Moseley, W. G. 2001. Monitoring urban food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. African Geographical Review, 21(1): 81-90.

Pelling, M., Chow, W. T. L., Chu, E., Dawson, R., Dodman, D., Fraser, A., Hayward, B. et al. 2021. A climate resilience research renewal agenda: learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic for urban climate resilience. Climate and Development, 0(0): 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.1956411

Peyton, S., Moseley, W. & Battersby, J. 2015. Implications of supermarket expansion on urban food security in Cape Town, South Africa. African Geographical Review, 34(1): 36-54.

Rao, N., Narain, N., Chakraborty, S., Bhanjdeo, A. & Pattnaik, A. 2020. Destinations Matter: Social Policy and Migrant Workers in the Times of Covid. The European Journal of Development Research, 32(5): 1639–1661. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7590571/

Recine, E., Preiss, P.V., Valencia, M. et al. 2021. The Indispensable Territorial Dimension of Food Supply: A View from Brazil During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Development, 64: 282–287. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-021-00308-x    

Rede Brasileira de Pesquisa em Soberania e Segurança Alimentar (Rede PENSSAN). 2021. VIGISAN National Survey of Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil https://olheparaafome.com.br/VIGISAN_AF_National_Survey_of_Food_Insecurity.pdf

Tefft, J., Jonasova, M., Adjao, R. & Morgan, A. 2017. Food systems for an urbanizing world. Washington DC, World Bank and Rome, FAO.

UNDESA (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs). 2018. 2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects. New York. Cited June 2022. https://desapublications.un.org/file/615/download

UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme). 2016. The New Urban Agenda. Nairobi. https://habitat3.org/wp-content/uploads/NUA-English.pdf

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Dr. Andrew Schmitz

University of Florida
United States of America

Three key issues that need more attention:

  1. food storage
  2. food waste and
  3. transportation

which are linked in any meaningful value chain analyses In many regions ,and for many commodities , storage facilities if they do exist are inadequate . Food waste is a major concern and more analyses of this topic is badly needed For example most analysts miss the fact that eating and cooking meals at home generate more food waste than eating away from home The cost of transportation has risen sharply and transportation linkages connecting production sources and consumer demands ,as shown in supply chain analyses , are often non existent.

For references:

Andrew Schmitz, Charles B. Moss, Troy G. Schmitz, G. Cornelis van Kooten and H. Carole Schmitz (2022) Agricultural Policy, Agribusiness, and Rent-Seeking Behaviour.

Dr. Andrew Schmitz

Ben Hill Griffin, Jr., Eminent Scholar and Professor

Food and Resource Economics, University of Florida

Dr. Pradip Dey

ICAR-AICRP (STCR), Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal
Inde

Dear FSN Members and others,

Good evening from India!

Kindly find below the comments w.r.t. point no. 10 about citizen engagement vis-a-vis capacity building:

Capacity building - at both individual and institutional level, greater involvement of private sector through Public Private Partnership and better awareness is important. Top-down anti-corruption practices and national level approaches to improving accountability mechanisms have often failed in fragile and conflict-affected situations. In contrast, identifying and supporting local accountability mechanisms, strengthening partnerships, and supporting collaborative governance and capacity building has been shown to be more effective in these contexts. The accountability triangle involving Citizen, Policymakers and Public Private Partnership provides a way to understand successes and failures along the service delivery chain by analyzing the relationships between policymakers/politicians, service providers and citizens. 

With warm regards 

Dear Évariste Nicolétis and Paola Termine,

This is an important step that can address various socio-ecological and economic challenges related to urbanisation and sustainability. I appreciate you for taking this timely and important topic for consultation.

My comments will focus more on gaps in the scope related to urban agriculture that address questions A and B.

A. Do you find the proposed scope comprehensive to analyze and discuss the key issues concerning the role of urban and peri-urban food systems in achieving food security and nutrition? Are there any major gaps or omissions?

  1. Recognising multifunctionality of urban agriculture: In the context of urbanisation, urban agriculture can serve multiple functions in addition to contributing to food security and nutrition. Recognising the multifunctionality of urban agriculture is crucial to explore its overall sustainability potential including contributing to food security and nutrition. The scope of this HLPE report has focused on mere food security and nutrition aspects of urban agriculture and has not addressed its multifunctionality. This might invite unwarranted sustainability challenges as it may be interpreted as mere expansion of present modes of food production into the urban areas. If urban agriculture can contribute to sustainability along with ensuring food security, it must be integrated into the urban fabric and it needs to consider all social, ecological, cultural, and economic outcomes urban agriculture can offer. It would be great if the report incorporates these aspects into its scope.
  2. Recognising diversity of urban agriculture practices: There are multitudes of urban agriculture practices. However, the scope of the report seems to focus more on land-based urban agricultural practices which is mostly mere expansion of conventional agriculture to urban areas. Although it is important to bring all possible unused urban land under food production, it may also lead to challenges that the dominant agri-food system already eliciting in the rural hinterlands. Also, such urban agriculture practices will not be well-integrated into the urban fabric. Therefore, to ensure long-lasting and sustainable urban agricultural practices, the emphasis of the report should be to promote various types of small-scale urban agricultural practices that are well-integrated into the urban fabric and use all otherwise unused spaces for food production. The types of urban agriculture practices that needs more policy attention and promotion may vary depending upon the geographical context and local specificities. However, there should be special emphasis not to ignore small-scale and non-commercial urban agricultural practices in the policy support.
  3. Emphasis on ecological, circular, and resource-efficient production methods: The scope of the HLPE report do not speak about sustainable production methods of urban agriculture that needs to be adopted in order to ensure ecological sustainability in addition to food security and nutrition. Ecological, circular, and resource-efficient production methods need to receive adequate attention in the HLPE report. As there is constant competition for resources in the urban areas, special emphasis should be given to develop and promote practices that are resource efficient. Ecological production practices need to be emphasised because otherwise urban agriculture may act against the concept of ecological sustainability and health if more agrochemicals are introduced into the urban areas. Also, to well-integrate into the urban fabric and to ensure circular food production, there should be more focus on integrating urban waste management with urban agriculture.
  4. Overcoming Global North-South divide in urban agriculture research: There is a large divide between Global North and Global South in carrying out the research on urban agriculture. Institutions from Global North has dominated in urban agriculture research and this has resulted in providing a world view that is largely reflective of urban agriculture practices from the Global North (Pinheiro and Govind 2020) (document attached). Therefore, urban agriculture practices and its intricacies from the Global South has been largely absent in the peer-reviewed research literature. It would be pertinent for the HLPE report to consider this knowledge gap and take measures to overcome it.
  5. Gaps need to be addressed by policy actors:
    1. Much of the interventions on urban agriculture, especially government initiatives, largely focuses on large cities. New interventions for urban agriculture promotion in large cities may act as mitigation measures to address climate change whereas in small towns and cities, urban agriculture can offer adaptation measures. Moreover, in small-towns and cities have more flexibility to incorporate urban agriculture in their interventions to build edible urban areas. HLPE report needs to emphasis this aspect to avoid bias in the interventions.
    2. The scope of the HLPE report do not talk much about inclusiveness in the interventions for urban agriculture. It needs conscious efforts to make sure that the benefits of urban agriculture are extended to all sections of society in an affordable and culturally appropriate way.
    3. Also, there should be integration of activities of various government departments to make sure that adequate steps are taken to integrate waste management with urban food production.
    4. Integrating urban agriculture into the urban short food supply chains are another area that need innovative policy attention. It may not be always possible to integrate urban agriculture produces into the existing marketing channels. Innovative measures need to be taken to create new urban short food supply chains where even small-quantities of home-grown or garden-surplus produces can be sold.
    5. There is a dearth of quantitative data on urban agriculture practices, its focus and production, and other sustainability outcomes. It will be pertinent to keep a database to keep track of urban agriculture policy interventions so that adequate measures can be taken for further improvement.

B. Share good practices and successful experiences on strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems in the context of urbanization and rural transformation, including in the case of emergencies or conflicts.

a. In one of the Indian states, Kerala, there were government interventions for promotion of urban home gardening in private residential spaces across the state irrespective of the size or population of the urban areas. Kerala has a rural-urban continuum and high urban population (almost half of the total population). From 2012-2013 to 2021-22, the government has taken measures to incorporate subsidised distribution of containers planted with vegetable seedlings at a cost as low as less than 7 USD, after 75 % subsidy. This enabled people from almost all sections of society to start home-garden vegetable cultivation in all possible spaces in their residential areas, be it ground, rooftop, parapet, balcony or top of boundary walls. Also, there were measures to distribute drip or wick irrigation units suitable for small house lots to ensure water-efficient vegetable gardening. In addition, there were also interventions to distribute waste management units under subsidy schemes so that home garden vegetable cultivation can be integrated with household waste management. These activities, carried out as part of ‘Promotion of urban clusters and waste management’ under Vegetable Development Program focused on reviving the traditional practices of home gardening with small-scale technological support to make it suitable for space-crunch urban areas. In other states where respective state governments promote urban home gardening/kitchen gardening in India, the scope has been limited only to large cities with a higher population.

b. In one district centre in Kerala, there is an initiative led by a social media collective (Facebook-based agriculture group operated in the local language Malayalam) to link home-grown food production with urban short food supply chains. They use the Facebook group to disseminate information on the types and quantities of the produces that will be available in the urban weekly market. This group takes stringent measures to ensure that all the produce sold there is grown completely organically and ensures “know your farmer” or “vegetables with an address” to the customers. More details can be found in Pinheiro (200). The document is attached here.

Enclosures for further reading:

Pinheiro, A. (2022). Urban home gardening movement in Kerala—Role of social media collectives. LEISA-India. https://leisaindia.org/urban-home-gardening-movement-in-kerala-role-of-…

Pinheiro, A., & Govind, M. (2020). Emerging Global Trends in Urban Agriculture Research: A Scientometric Analysis of Peer-reviewed Journals. Journal of Scientometric Research, 9(2), 163–173. https://doi.org/10.5530/jscires.9.2.20

Dear FSN Moderator and the HLPE team, thank-you for the opportunity to provide inputs during this scoping phase. My notes can be found below. Looking forward to the report.

Best Dr. A Trevenen-Jones

The outline scope of the report indicates a much-needed attention to the widening inequalities in urban food systems driven by the unique food environment, insufficient understanding and intervention around the informal food sector, aspects of gender and dietary challenges alongside multiplier Anthropocene impacts. It also highlights the urban-peri-urban and rural food system connectivity, but perhaps more could be developed with respect to referencing a sustainable food systems framework. While best practices regarding what city governments and partners are doing to transform their food systems are being shared by cities across the world, through for example, platforms like the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (awards) and Food Action Cities accessible databases, less appears to be shared about learnings and monitoring and evaluation – about what worked and what didn’t, what and how just food transformation was monitored and how communities moved forward. This is of value given the context specific character of food systems and governance and that everyone is learning and course correcting along the way.

Coverage of the UNFSS Coalitions, as interlinked in an ‘’ecosystem’’ of support to regional, national, sub-national including local governments with special mention of the Coalition on Inclusive and Sustainable Urban Food Systems and updates (if possible) as per the UNFSS Stocktaking in mid-2023 would be meaningful and can provide a dynamic resource within the report.  Cross referencing with key reports like SOFI (2022) and the more recent Asia-Pacific SOFI as well as the Global Nutrition report provides further depth and a national and global perspective.

Cities/urban communities’ key role in invigorating urban-rural and regional connectivity and accelerated FS transformation is recognised in the scoping. It is worth mentioning that this is not only through the usual staple and fresh food demand but also by providing strong consumption-production signals for a diversity of sustainable and resilient food relationships through circular (‘’zero-waste’’) food systems, regenerative rural landscapes and social and technological innovations. In this respect, these dimensions should be further explored,

  • indigenous knowledge,
  • cultural practices,
  • food as social relationships,
  • intermediary cities as hubs connecting smaller towns, rural communities and larger cities,
  • small farmers and variety of multiple food systems linked SMEs,
  • storage and cool room value additions,
  • food handling and safety knowledge and practices,
  • diversified food system livelihoods especially in the informal sector,
  • better leveraging of how food is distributed through informal and formal channels including reaching those living in poverty and vulnerable to all forms of malnutrition, and the value of vendor/farmer and consumer fresh food markets as places where food knowledge and practices are shared and reinforced,
  • formal governance e.g. city governments/municipalities vs informal governance e.g. urban ‘’traditional’’ fresh food market committees as well as multi-level governance and multi-stakeholder mechanisms as mandated and as per practices, further noting the extent of effective local agency to reshape food environments/systems,
  • alignment around ‘’One city, one food system’’ type principles whether through formal or informal/voluntary partnerships,
  • positive implications of supermarket growth and aspirational low-middle income communities e.g. food safety, diversity and price of food, shifting consumer preferences,
  • social and ecological resilience,
  • access to sub-national food systems data – quantitative and qualitative, as well as
  • gender mainstreaming and youth engagement - as designed and practiced.

Moreover, as cities expand and more people reside in cities issues of ‘’food deserts’’ and urban creep into the peri-urban surrounds arise as such what constitutes urban vs peri-urban food system, agency and inclusion, nexus relationships e.g. food, municipal water, renewable energy, as well as impact on affordability and physical access to safe, nutritious and diverse foods should be clarified – with referencing of Dietary Quality.

A final note on context, while this matters, practices and learnings from other cities/cases offer invaluable tools, learnings and approaches which can be copied and or adapted. In this respect while there are disparities between developed and developing countries and cities exemplars offered by the cities of Baltimore, Bristol, Nairobi, Dhaka, Quelimane, New York and many others should be considered – and selected based on inspiration and criteria like city ‘’size and administrative mandate’’ and address of equity, urban planning innovation or best practice, ‘’one city’’ partnerships, farmers markets etc.

Suggested resources:

Dear CFS/HLPE-FSN Team,

 Please find my Inputs,

  • Urban growth borders have become a key instrument for containment, restricting urban growth and separating urban and rural areas.
  • Unplanned "urban sprawls" are environmentally unsustainable and consume valuable land resources, often fertile agricultural land.
  • In the last 4 decades in some cities we have witnessed the impact of urbanization on the natural resources, decline of vegetation more than 60% and water bodies more than 70%, with an increase of temperature by ~2 to 2.5 ºC.
  • The food pattern of the population has significantly changed, from the last few decades due to various reasons like migration for job, education, business and on transfer etc. The food consumption is not nutritious because of adapting to new trends and change of life style and adopting throw away culture. There is a shift in cultural and traditional practise of food habits.

On behalf of We Effect, a Swedish cooperative development cooperation organisation, I share cases and comments collected from our work with partner organisations.

We have numerous cases of home gardens. First out is a case from Zimbabwe where one of our partner organisations has seen that with the adoption of organic farming input, farming costs have been reduced by more than 90% (Cost of producing a 200L cow fertiliser cost US$5 while cost of Ammonium Nitrate inorganic fertiliser is US$54-$75). Members of our supported partner organisation are now producing food at a minimal cost. In Gambiza, Chiundura, Getrude who relies on gardening projects testifies that besides having the organic fertilisers (fish hydrolysate and lab serum) helping in the growth of her vegetables, she has realised that they control aphids and help keep the crops healthy. She has moved from using artificial fertilisers ever since she got the information from the organisation Women and Land in Zimbambwe (WLZ) about organic liquid fertilisers. Training initiatives have also attracted many people to join WLZ groups and with it, there has been an increase in WLZ membership with the final result of 95% of members applying climate resilient farming practices.

More cases and comments are attached:

Attached: Case of domestic organoponic gardens in housing cooperatives in Central America.

Attached: Case of azolla crop cultivation on Palestine

Attached: Cases of urban and peri-urban low water usage agriculture in Palestine

Attached: Comments from our Zambia land office on the two questions of: 

  • What are the most appropriate policies (and gaps in existing policies) along the rural-urban continuum to address issues of land tenure, urban expansion into farmland and the growing competition for natural resources?
  • In what ways can the incorporation of climate resilient agricultural and circular economy practices in urban and peri-urban agriculture provide climate co-benefits for all and enhance climate resilience?

If more best practice cases of home gardens are of interest, or more in-depth information about the ones listed above, we are happy to contribute with such.

TMG’s work as part of the Urban Food Futures programme addressed the two questions:

1)How can urban and peri-urban food systems be transformed and made more equitable and accessible both for food system actors and in terms of food security and nutrition outcomes?

2) How can citizens be engaged and empowered to drive inclusive, transparent, participatory processes for urban transformations, ensuring synergies and complementarity with city councils?

Setting out at the height of the Covid-19 crisis, our work was driven by one overarching question: how have low-income communities in the three cities responded to the impact of the pandemic on food security? And, subsequently, what can we learn from immediate community responses to design pathways for transformation of urban food systems? To achieve food system transformation, therefore, we need to re-politicize issues around food and hunger. While celebrating individual successes, the impact we want to see goes beyond the single project. One of our main objectives for the second phase of the programme is to establish “Urban Nutrition Hubs” as spaces for learning, dialogue, and piloting of innovation. Using a living lab approach, the Hubs will serve as spaces for co-creating knowledge with local communities and other actors, and driving the implementation of our programmatic pathways as we continue to pilot and link multiple local innovations with municipal action. To achieve food and nutrition security in urban areas, food and nutrition policies must be fundamentally rethought from the point of view of the needs of those who are experiencing food and nutrition insecurity. Food security policies tend to neglect cities as a distinct entity requiring distinct policies, and they tend to focus on increasing food production. This negates the recommendations arising from a range of findings that show that food insecurity is often tied to income, gender, and social status. Strategies to address food and nutrition insecurity in informal settlements and low-income areas require solutions beyond traditional strategies that are often focussed on production-oriented solutions. If those had worked in the past, lives in informal settlements would look different today. Transformative changes to improve urban food security and nutrition must employ different strategies informed by local realities and must centre the consumer perspective. This requires a commitment to understanding the complex realities of urban low-income areas and informal settlements and acknowledge the drivers of food insecurity, particularly in the light of crises. Urban Nutrition Hubs are living labs in real-life settings where solutions to food system challenges emerge. Urban Nutrition Hubs are characterised by their multifunctionality. Food is symbolic of identity and collective culture and is often manifested in unpaid care work provided by women on farms, in kitchens, as vendors, or in other communal roles. Urban Nutrition Hubs will serve as places to advocate for women’s rights and support the empowerment of women through networking and advocacy programmes. 

TMG's Pathways for Transformation:

https://downloads.ctfassets.net/rrirl83ijfda/6mSvmaV4SgT1Kedf6dS0jM/a24…

Dr. Marc Wegerif

University of Pretoria. Dept. Anthropology, Archaeology and Development Studies
Afrique du Sud
Dear Moderator and HLPE



Please find a submission in response to your "HLPE-FSN e-consultation on Strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems to achieve food security and nutrition in the context of urbanization and rural transformation". 

Thanks for this consultation and the important initiative. I hope some of the ideas are useful for this important piece of work that the HLPE is undertaking.

The scope and rationale is generally good. The current scope is completely gender blind. Please do not proceed with this without giving good attention to the particular roles and vulnerabilities of women within food systems. If you would like to follow up on any particular suggestions, feel free to contact me. 

My comments are structured in response to the consultation guiding questions. Apologies that some of it is rushed. Giving ideas seemed more important than polished answers.



Stay well




Dr. Marc Wegerif

Development Studies Programme Coordinator, Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Development Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Inputs 

A

Share your comments on the objectives and proposed content of this report as outlined above.

Do you find the proposed scope comprehensive to analyze and discuss the key issues concerning the role of urban and peri-urban food systems in achieving food security and nutrition? Are there any major gaps or omissions?

Good piece of work. The scope is clear and comprehensive. Good to see the attention given to the importance of ‘informal’ food systems and the “complex network of suppliers, transporters, hawkers, retailers and street and market food vendors, in addition to farmers” that are involved. Also the reference to territorial markets and the role of municipalities are particularly positive.

While talking food systems, one does not get a very clear sense of a food system approach. I would expect more attention to the way in which food systems are shaped by, and in turn shape, the wider social, economic and ecological conditions.

The line starting at bottom of page two does direct us to some of these issues, but that line does not explicitly mention food system and we don’t get explicit acknowledgment of the role of food systems in relation to these social and ecological issues.

Missing is:

- Reference to gender and the particular roles and vulnerabilities of women.

- Clarity on what is meant by “urban and peri-urban food systems”. I understand an urban food system to be the food system that provides food to the residents of an urban area, or urban areas. That then incorporates the food system from inputs, primary production, processing, transporting, distribution, retailing through to consumption. One could imagine some people reading the scope and rationale document and seeing the urban and peri-urban food system as being what happens in urban and peri-urban areas. The holistic approach I am suggesting is the most appropriate way to also address the link with rural areas.

- Attention to the livelihood, business, and livelihood creating role and opportunities in urban and peri-urban food systems. Food systems do, and need to, create livelihoods and broad based business opportunities.

- Attention to the social dynamics of food systems. They can build or undermine social cohesion.

- Enough attention to assessing the ecological (environmental) impacts of food systems and the need for ecologically regenerative food systems.

- Attention to what one could think of as “middle-ground, neither local nor global, food systems” (Wegerif & Wiskerke, 2017). The mention of “short supply chains” doesn’t cover this and is problematic in other ways, as I shall explain below. The reality is that much food needed in cities, especially heavy staples, has to come from some distance. But this does not have to be through global supply chains. There are two key issues that need more attention: 1) the mid-distance, of rural hinterlands of a country and intra-regional trade that might cover some distance, but are very different from depending on global food systems and global supply chains for food; and 2) the nature of the actors and social and economic relations involved in these food flows even when they cover some distance.

- Power and inequality in the framing of the issue and focus of the study. I put these two important issues together as they are so interlinked. Food systems are shaped by power and they can drive greater inequality and with it greater accumulation of not just wealth, but also power, or they can be more equitable and move societies to be more equitable. This exercise needs to be very cognisant of power and inequality, it needs to explore in looking at existing food systems and proposing any interventions who the winners and losers are, who owns what and who gets what. It needs to look at what power is shaping food systems and the policies related to them and interventions that are made and not made.

- Food utilisation issues that relate to food choices and health issues. These do directly impact food and nutrition security outcomes. Perhaps, to bring this out alongside other factors, the triple burden of poor nutrition concept would be useful.

Some debates:

- The notion of supply chains does not fit with the reality of many urban food systems that are better understood as the complex networks as mentioned in the document. The difference is important because the study needs to understand the nature of relations involved and in many cities in the South and these are not ‘supply chain’ relations, so they should not be assumed to be or be judged in relation to ‘supply chain’ thinking. The other way in which ‘short supply chains’ don’t fit, is the undefined notion of ‘short’, as covered in the note on ‘middle-ground’ above. It would be problematic to start out research with normative assumptions that short is always necessarily better, especially taking into account the rural producers as well as urban eaters.

- The notion of informal is problematic due to the lack of clarity about what it means (Dell'Anno, 2022), its description of something by what it is not, which has a built in assumption about what it should be and therefore about its inferiority in relation to that ideal. And this is not just a theoretical argument; we see the prejudice against the informal play out in state actions (Battersby, 2020; Kiaka et al., 2021; Skinner, 2018; Wegerif, 2020). It is also problematic to think, as many do, of food systems that are dominant in their contexts, supply most of the food for urban eaters, and involve an array of forms of taxations, regulation and registration (such as of market traders and small shop owners), as ‘informal’. I appreciate your centring of ‘informal’ in the scoping document as it is a known term and your use of it shows recognition of much of the food system of cities in the global south, but I would at the same time appeal to the team to look beyond the notion of informal, to explore the actual nature of these urban food systems, to understand their organising logic, and to not start out prejudiced with assumptions of ‘formal’ as a standard to reach and measure the rest against. This piece of work could make a useful contribution by questioning and exploring other options to the concept of informal for describing the most important food systems for those in poverty in our cities.

B

Share good practices and successful experiences on strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems in the context of urbanization and rural transformation, including in the case of emergencies or conflicts.

The good practices that I want to urge greater attention to are the what the subaltern in cities of the global south are doing themselves. That is what those in poverty create for themselves to meet their needs for food and livelihoods. Much of this falls into what gets termed ‘informal’. But informal in fact covers many things, not all related to those in poverty. The issue is to value and learn from what the poor and oppressed do themselves.

The work of Jane Battersby and others linked to the Hungry Cities Partnership has revealed some of these important good practices, at least the importance for food supply of the ‘informal’ parts of the food system (Battersby et al., 2016; Battersby & Watson, 2018; Haysom, 2015; Rudolph et al., 2021; Skinner, 2016; Skinner & Haysom, 2016).

Work on urban subaltern studies from south Asia, such as by Bayat and Roy, have lessons for us on urban food systems, even if their own work is not food focussed (Bayat, 2000; Roy, 2005, 2011).

 

My own work on the feeding of Dar es Salaam shows good practices in how a symbiotic food system, with multitudes of actors and no corporate vertical integration, feeds a large and fast growing city (Wegerif, 2020; Wegerif, 2014; Wegerif & Hebinck, 2016; Wegerif & Martucci, 2019).

Planning, urban plans, infrastructure, and food system governance that creates space for food trade, for food markets, and for the many (including the unruly) initiatives of the sub-altern is good practice (Battersby & Watson, 2019; Skinner & Watson, 2020; Wegerif & Kissoly, 2022; Zhong et al., 2019) and these should be useful (Béné & Devereux, 2023; Haysom, 2022).

I have current and ongoing work looking at street traders selling fresh produce and their contribution to food access and food systems as a whole in South Africa. This contribution is happening despite the high level of corporate concentration in food systems in South Africa. This, I would argue, is a good practice. As work is ongoing, much has not been published yet, but a few things related to this have come out and more is on the way (Tempia et al., 2023; Wegerif, 2022a).

C

Share recent literature, case studies and data that could help answer the following questions:

1.            What are the main bottlenecks hampering the contribution of urban and peri-urban food systems to food security and nutrition?

Corporate concentration in food systems including increasing financialisation (Greenberg, 2015, 2017; Heijden & Vink, 2013; Wegerif & Anseeuw, 2020). Also policy makers’ and planners’ neglect or active undermining of parts of the food system. We need far more attention to the impacts and implications of financialisaton in the global food system.

2.            How can urban and peri-urban food systems be transformed and made more equitable and accessible both for food system actors and in terms of food security and nutrition outcomes?

Learn from and build on how the subaltern organise food systems. Multitudes of actors of similar scale in symbiotic relations. Grow the food system through replication, not scaling up. Spaces for markets in cities within walking distance of all residents. Local small shops. Bicycle based distribution. Certain levels of protection from the vagaries of international trade and non-food influences such as exchange rate fluctuations. Primarily agroecological production. Autonomy of farmers and other actors in food systems. I have put references for my work on this, such as (Wegerif, 2020), here are a few more other writings of value among many other works (De Schutter, 2010; Gliessman, 2018; Mier y Terán Giménez Cacho et al., 2018; Rosset et al., 2011; Van der Ploeg, 2008, 2014)

3.            How can urban food supply chains, formal and informal, local and global, be made more resilient to ensure food security and nutrition within urban settings?

First move away from ‘food supply chains’ thinking that is rooted in corporate practices that prioritise accumulation for the few and do not work for the majority. We don’t need to make ‘supply chains’ more resilient, we need socially and ecologically regenerative food systems. I believe my answer to question 2 above covers some of this. The full elaboration will need a lot more space than this brief input.

What I will add here is the need to recognise the ways in which market relations are socially (as well as economically) embedded and to then seek ways to enhance the best in us; the collaborations between actors that keep food systems more collaborative, inclusive, and equitable (Ndhlovu, 2022; Ostrom, 1990, 2010; Zak, 2011).

4.            What changes are needed in urban planning to better support all dimensions of food security – including support for human rights, agency and sustainability? Which are some of the measures that can strengthen the agency of local actors in urban and peri-urban food systems? 

Space for the initiatives of the subaltern based on recognising their agency. Plan for space for food markets and trading within walking distance of all in the cities. Move away from outdated three party (state, private sector, community) ideas of stakeholder involvement. Ensure infrastructure and technology that enables multitudes of actors of a small-scale. Avoid concentration of ownership, production, and processing. Grow through replication, not scaling up.  Some references (Skinner & Watson, 2020; Wegerif, 2022b; Wegerif & Kissoly, 2022; Zhong et al., 2019).

5.            How can national and municipal governments strengthen the potential for low-carbon, inclusive, relatively self-sufficient and resilient cities and towns to drive improved food security and nutrition in the wake of climate change and other crises?

I believe my answers on some of the above cover this to some extent. These are big questions that I can’t fully address in this short input.

6.            What are the most appropriate policies (and gaps in existing policies) along the rural-urban continuum to address issues of land tenure, urban expansion into farmland and the growing competition for natural resources?

I have touched on some of what is needed above. Let me emphasis here some of the main problems (Gaps). One is the focus on corporate supply and value chains and efforts to incorporate other actors into these rather than support real and living alternatives. Another is under valuing and undermining what the subaltern do themselves. And another is overlooking power in food systems. And, last I will state here is a continued failure by decision makers to truly take a holistic food system approach. By that I mean the failure to fully factor in and value in our analysis and interventions the full social, economic, and ecological contribution of food systems as elaborated in a range of documents (FAO, 2018; HLPE, 2020).

7.            How can urban and peri-urban food systems ensure that food and nutrition needs of specific groups of people, such as migrants, the internally-displaced, children, adolescent, etc., are met?

My suggestions above will assist with this, in particular the focus on food systems of and for the sub-altern. This includes recognising and working with their agency.

8.            What are the potential benefits and challenges of territorial markets for strengthening food security and nutrition for urban populations?

More diversified multi-actor food systems with greater autonomy from corporate control (CSM, 2016).

9.            In what ways can the incorporation of climate resilient agricultural and circular economy practices in urban and peri-urban agriculture provide climate co-benefits for all and enhance climate resilience?

This needs smaller-scale operations networked in symbiotic food systems within which animal manure and what would otherwise be food waste are reused as compost, etc. Water use planning and management are critical in many areas.

10.         How can citizens be engaged and empowered to drive inclusive, transparent, participatory processes for urban transformations, ensuring synergies and complementarity with city councils?

Recognise and be responsive to the actions and initiatives (agency) of the subaltern. That doesn’t mean traditional stakeholder meetings, it means positive responses to people’s actions and initiatives. New alliances are needed among the ‘informal’ traders, small-scale processors and small-scale farmers for them to be organised and heard differently.

11.         Which experiences of urban communities to increase access to fresh food and healthy diets can inspire broader public policies?

The way street traders of different kinds create livelihoods for themselves and make food more accessible to those in poverty.

Some References:

Battersby, J. (2020). South Africa’s lockdown regulations and the reinforcement of anti-informality bias. Agriculture and Human Values, 37, 543-544. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10078-w

Battersby, J., Marshak, M., & Mngqibisa, N. (2016). Mapping the invisible: the Informal food economy of Cape Town, South Africa (Urban food security series, Issue. https://hungrycities.net/publication/hcp-discussion-papers-no-5-mapping-informal-food-economy-cape-town-south-africa/

Battersby, J., & Watson, V. (2018). Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities. Routledge.

Battersby, J., & Watson, V. (2019). The planned ‘city-region’in the New Urban Agenda: an appropriate framing for urban food security? Town Planning Review, 90(5), 497-519.

Bayat, A. (2000). From ‘Dangerous Classes' to Quiet Rebels' Politics of the Urban Subaltern in the Global South. International sociology, 15(3), 533-557. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/026858000015003005

Béné, C., & Devereux, S. (2023). Resilience and Food Security in a Food Systems Context. Springer Nature.

CSM. (2016). Connecting Smallholders to Markets: An Analytical Guide (International Civil Society Mechanism, Hands On the Land Alliance for Food Sovereignty, Issue. https://www.csm4cfs.org/connecting-smallholders-markets-analytical-guide/

Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter (Agroecology), Promotion and protection of human rights: human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms  (Human Rights Council, United Nations, A/HRC/16/49 2010).

Dell'Anno, R. (2022). Theories and definitions of the informal economy: A survey. Journal of Economic Surveys, 36(5), 1610-1643.

FAO. (2018). Sustainable food systems: Concept and framework. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

Gliessman, S. (2018). Feeding Prometheus: agroecology and unchaining our desire for food system transformation. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

Greenberg, S. (2015). Corporate Concentration And Food Security In South Africa: Is The Commercial Agro-Food System Delivering?

Greenberg, S. (2017). Corporate power in the agro-food system and the consumer food environment in South Africa. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 44(2), 467-496. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2016.1259223

Haysom, G. (2015). Food and the city: Urban scale food system governance. Urban Forum,

Haysom, G. (2022). Understanding secondary city typologies: A food governance lens. In Transforming Urban Food Systems in Secondary Cities in Africa (pp. 25-44). Springer International Publishing Cham.

Heijden, T. v. d., & Vink, N. (2013). Good for whom? Supermarkets and small farmers in South Africa–a critical review of current approaches to increasing access to modern markets. Agrekon, 52(1), 68-86.

HLPE. (2020). Food security and nutrition: Building a global narrative towards 2030. CFS - Committee on World Food Security. http://www.fao.org/3/ca9731en/ca9731en.pdf

Kiaka, R., Chikulo, S., Slootheer, S., & Hebinck, P. (2021). “The street is ours”. A comparative analysis of street trading, Covid-19 and new street geographies in Harare, Zimbabwe and Kisumu, Kenya. Food Security, 1-19. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-021-01162-y

Mier y Terán Giménez Cacho, M., Giraldo, O. F., Aldasoro, M., Morales, H., Ferguson, B. G., Rosset, P., Khadse, A., & Campos, C. (2018). Bringing agroecology to scale: key drivers and emblematic cases. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 42(6), 637-665. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2018.1443313

Ndhlovu, T. P. (2022). Food (in) security, the moral economy, and Ubuntu in South Africa: a Southern perspective. Review of international political economy, 1-25.

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press.

Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems. American Economic Review, 100, 408-444. https://doi.org/10.1080/19186444.2010.11658229

Rosset, P. M., Machín Sosa, B., Roque Jaime, A. M., & Ávila Lozano, D. R. (2011). The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(1), 161-191.

Roy, A. (2005). Urban informality: Toward an epistemology of planning. Journal of the american planning association, 71(2), 147-158. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/01944360508976689

Roy, A. (2011). Slumdog cities: Rethinking subaltern urbanism. International journal of urban and regional research, 35(2), 223-238.

Rudolph, M., Kroll, F., Muchesa, E., Paiker, M., & Fatti, P. (2021). Food Security in Urban Cities: A Case Study Conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa. Journal of Food Security, 9(2), 46-55. https://doi.org/10.12691/jfs-9-2-2

Skinner, C. (2016). Informal food retail in Africa: A review of evidence (Consuming urban poverty project, Issue.

Skinner, C. (2018). Contributing yet excluded? Informal food retail in African cities. In J. Battersby & V. Watson (Eds.), Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities (pp. 141). Routledge.

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Dear FSN moderator,

It is my pleasure – as programme manager -  to share a contribution from the WUR team involved in FAO’s Dhaka Food Systems Project currently ongoing in Bangladesh, We have pulled some of our ideas an resources together in response to the queries raised around strengthening urban an peri-urban food systems for FNS.

Please find herewith our contribution from Wageningen University and research. In case of any question please fee free to reach out.

COMMENTS

A. Share your comments on the objectives and proposed content of this report as outlined above.

Do you find the proposed scope comprehensive to analyze and discuss the key issues concerning the role of urban and peri-urban food systems in achieving food security and nutrition? Are there any major gaps or omissions?

Response:

With reference to four years of comprehensive work covering four cities in the in the Dhaka Metropolitan area in the Support for modelling, planning and improving Dhaka’s food system (DFS) Project, led by FAO Bangladesh, and jointly implemented with Wageningen University and research (WUR), the defined scope touches upon on a set of highly relevant themes in the realm of strengthening food systems in urbanizing societies. However, the mode of scope articulation is at the same time quite generic and broad and seems to lack a bit a food systemic problem framing making more explicit what are the critical drivers and what are activities and outcomes of interest, in particularly reasoning from the ambition to consider the two interrelated phenomena of urbanisation and rural transformation in parallel. Highly interesting, but highly complex at the same time.

From our work in the DFS project, which has put into practice a responsive approach working with he national and city governments, a few emerging areas of interest relate to:

  • rethinking food system governance across scales. Who sets the boundaries to urban/peri-urban food systems, formally but also informally. Who is responsible for urban food policy? Who holds the process of food system governance?
  • A focus on sustainable healthy diets rather than on food and nutrition security, in line with earlier work of the HLPE on nutrition, also reflecting the growing body of research on planetary boundaries and the pressure of current food systems.
  • Addressing today urgencies next to applying long term planning: the development of planning approaches, processes, and tools to support anticipatory governance capacities building on foresight and scenario development techniques, necessary to understand dynamics across scales and timelines and thus building towards strategies to build an understanding on balancing  trade-offs, including who wins and who light loose, identifying synergies and to support decision making.

B. Share good practices and successful experiences on strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems in the context of urbanization and rural transformation, including in the case of emergencies or conflicts.

Feel free to check out our website

https://www.wur.nl/en/research-results/research-institutes/centre-for-development-innovation/show-cdi/improving-dhakas-food-system.htm

Share recent literature, case studies and data that could help answer the following questions:

  1. What are the main bottlenecks hampering the contribution of urban and peri-urban food systems to food security and nutrition?

What we can share here are the lessons learned in the DFS project from initiating and facilitating city working groups and their road towards developing their city specific food charters.

https://edepot.wur.nl/575023:. Lotte Roosendaal, MSc1, Marion Herens, PhD1, Riti Herman-Mostert, MSc1, Jainal Abedin, MBA2. 2022. The contribution of City Working Groups to Dhaka’s Food System Governance: first experiences and insights - Case-based experiences from the Dhaka Metropolitan Area. Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, Wageningen University & Research. Wageningen

https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/consumers-health-and-food-safety-perceptions-in-the-dhaka-metropo: Harriëtte M. Snoek, Haki Pamuk, Ireen Raaijmakers, Valerie C.J. Janssen, Kulsum Begum Chowdhury, Syeda Mahsina Akter, Siet J. Sijtsema (2021): Consumers’ health and food safety perceptions in the Dhaka metropolitan area, Wageningen Economic Research,  Wageningen University & Research. Wageningen

2.            How can urban and peri-urban food systems be transformed and made more equitable and accessible both for food system actors and in terms of food security and nutrition outcomes?

  1. How can urban food supply chains, formal and informal, local and global, be made more resilient to ensure food security and nutrition within urban settings?

     
  2. What changes are needed in urban planning to better support all dimensions of food security – including support for human rights, agency and sustainability? Which are some of the measures that can strengthen the agency of local actors in urban and peri-urban food systems?

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3423; Charlotte Van Haren, Inder Kumar, Anouk Cormont, Catharien Terwisscha van Scheltinga, Bertram De Rooij, Syed Islam, Peter Verweij: The Role of Spatialisation and Spatial Planning in Improving Food Systems: Insights from the Fast-Growing City of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3423; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043423

Also feel free to cCheck out our planning tools developed under the DFS project:

Interactive GiS Dhaka Food System: https://dhakafoodsystems.wenr.wur.nl/

Food system foresight Dashboard: https://shiny.wur.nl/foresight-dhaka-food-system/

Currently we are working on the process of transfer of tools to Bangladesh stakeholder

5.            How can national and municipal governments strengthen the potential for low-carbon, inclusive, relatively self-sufficient and resilient cities and towns to drive improved food security and nutrition in the wake of climate change and other crises?

6.            What are the most appropriate policies (and gaps in existing policies) along the rural-urban continuum to address issues of land tenure, urban expansion into farmland and the growing competition for natural resources?

Maybe this is of help:

https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/land-use-classification-bangladesh-combining-and-downscaling-exis

7.            How can urban and peri-urban food systems ensure that food and nutrition needs of specific groups of people, such as migrants, the internally-displaced, children, adolescent, etc., are met?

We have developed a Nutrition Strategy to strengthen nutrition sensitive action across all activities

https://edepot.wur.nl/566606: S. Bakker, L. Roosendaal, M. Herens, A. Mishra, M. Chowdhury (2021); Nutrition strategy for the Dhaka Food Systems Project, Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, Wageningen University & Research. Wageningen

And a Gender strategy:  Riti Hermán Mostert, Janet Naco, Samprita Chakma, Md. Parvez, Melanie Kok, Harriette Snoek , Anouk Cormont, John Taylor (FAO Bangladesh), Jan Brouwers (2020): Dhaka Food System: gender analysis and strategy, Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, Wageningen University & Research. Wageningen

8.            What are the potential benefits and challenges of territorial markets for strengthening food security and nutrition for urban populations?

9.            In what ways can the incorporation of climate resilient agricultural and circular economy practices in urban and peri-urban agriculture provide climate co-benefits for all and enhance climate resilience?

Still work in progress, but we have launched pilots on biogas digesters and black soldier fly rearing (reports forthcoming)

10.         How can citizens be engaged and empowered to drive inclusive, transparent, participatory processes for urban transformations, ensuring synergies and complementarity with city councils?

11.         Which experiences of urban communities to increase access to fresh food and healthy diets can inspire broader public policies?

We have, based on a range of consultations with a broad group of representatives in a dedicated foresight and scenario development process, drafted a Dhaka Food Agenda 2041with the ministry of local governance and the city corporations. This product is still up for feedback and validation with the GoB and will be launched in June 2023, therefore not to be made public at this stage. We could, however, make a request to send you a copy.

A report on the foresight process can be found: Riti Herman Mostert, Marion Herens, Lotte Roosendaal, Jim Woodhill, Jainal Abedin, Pedro Garzon Delvaux, Jessica Gomes, Nazrul Islam, Anowarul Islam, Sahidul Islam, Sharifa Parvin, Syed Islam, Mohammad Asif Mahfuz, Sajia Ahmed, Nuary Totan, Sk Mohibullah. With organising support from Silvi Razzaque and Abdullah Maimun (2022): Dhaka Food Agenda 2041 Foresight and Scenario development: workshop report. Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, Wageningen University & Research. Wageningen

Kind regards/Kind regards,

Marion Herens, PhD

Sr. Advisor Food and Nutrition Security / programme manager