Capacity-building for strengthening city region food system resilience
In the era of multiple shocks and stresses, local governments need to be engaged in building food system resilience alongside a broad range of other stakeholders across the food system. This webinar by FAO, RUAF, and MUFPP will showcase examples of cities that are already working to strengthen resilience, identifying how they have put actions in place and barriers they have overcome in the process. Each case study will highlight specific capacities that are needed by city officials and other stakeholders who are working, or will work, to build food systems resilience.
Building Resilient Urban Systems - Focus on Food security
The event was centered around the results of a global study conducted by FAO, RUAF and CIRAD, on lessons learnt from the impacts of multiple shocks and stresses on city region food systems, capturing interventions both as emergency measures and to build long-term resilience. The study also built an evidence base on how territorial food system approaches can help local governments with planning and investments to increase resilience to multiple risks, including climate change and pandemics.
The recording of the event is also available in French, Spanish and Chinese.
Launch of the City Region Food Systems Assessment and Planning Handbook and Toolkit
This event was organized to highlight the jointly launched City Region Food Systems (CRFS) Assessment and Planning Handbook and Online Toolkit by FAO and RUAF. These resources were developed based on the experiences of the CRFS Programme implemented in 11 cities across 10 countries since 2014 with the aim to build an understanding of the functioning of cities and food systems, assessing the risks and vulnerability to different types of shocks, engaging stakeholders in local food system governance, and promoting multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Webinar: City Region Food Systems - The role of local food production to increase resilience to COVID-19
30/06/2020
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, global food systems are facing disruptions from multiple aspects along the entire agri-food value chain. This pandemic has exposed the bottlenecks in food systems in countries and especially in urban areas where 70% of all food produced is consumed, processed or further distributed. Local governments are scrambling to take action, and while some are struggling, others have come up with innovative ideas and approaches in response to current seismic changes in food systems due to COVID-19.
Adopting a city region food system (CRFS) approach can help organize food systems in a more effective and sustainable manner to meet producer and consumer demands, by promoting local food production (especially family farmers & smallholders) and shorter supply chains, strengthening urban-rural linkages, and maintaining (or creating) diversity in the food supply chain and channels of distribution (from farm to fork).
The webinar provides an opportunity to discuss the work of FAO and partners in the CRFS programme and the current responses that some cities are formulating to increase resilience in their local food system.
Speakers:
- Fenton Beed - Team leader, Plant Production and Protection Division, FAO
- Rene van Veenhuizen - Senior Programme Officer, RUAF - City Region Food Systems to cope with COVID-19 and other shocks
- Carmen Zuleta - CRFS Project Coordinator, FAO Madagascar - Governance in Antananarivo city region food systems to reinforce local food production and supply
- Alexandra Rodriguez - Head of AGRUPAR Programme, CONQUITO Quito, Ecuador - How Quito's urban and peri-urban agriculture contributes to the COVID-19 response
Moderator: Guido Santini, CRFS programme coordinator, FAO
Materials from the webinar are available here: