Planning Food System Transitions
In this special section, authors approach urban, as well as city-region food systems, to discuss the implications of the deep changes needed in terms of degrowth, social justice and contesting the political and economic hegemony. It gathers selected contributions to the 9th International AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Conference held at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in Spain from the 6th to the 9th of November 2019. A main concern of this special issue is to reflect on planning instruments and processes as levers of the required public support toward territorialized food systems, diversified agroecological production, local logistic and retail infrastructures, adapted technologies, and the new organization of an envisioned closed-loop cycle from food production to food waste recycling. Three major thematic fields are addressed: urban and regional governance and planning, food democracy and agroecological transition.This Special Issue highlights that (and how) sustainable urban food planning can address power inequalities and facilitate emancipatory planning practices. It shows the structural changes necessary—from the allotment garden to the infrastructural landscape, from the urban individual to national governments—for food justice to become a driver of societal change and transformation.