Assessing and Planning Sustainable City Region Food Systems: Insights from Two Latin American Cities

Henk Renting,Juan Zuluaga,Guido Santini,Verónica Andino,Luca de Paoli,Makiko Taguchi,Alexandra Rodriguez,Louison Lançon,Marielle Dubbeling

doi:10.3390/su9081455

Henk Renting, Juan Zuluaga + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su9081455

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Abstract

In the context of growing urbanisation, urban poverty, and climate change impacts, the importance of urban food security and urban food systems is increasingly recognised by both local and national governments, as well as international actors. There is also a growing understanding that urban development and food systems cannot be decoupled from rural development given the multiple impacts that urban areas have on their surroundings. In recent years the concept of City Region Food Systems (CRFS) has emerged as a promising approach to support local governments, policy makers, and multi-stakeholder bodies in making informed decisions to improve urban and regional food system sustainability and resilience, while taking into account a more integrated approach to territorial development across urban and rural areas. This paper is based on an ongoing FAO and RUAF programme of assessing and planning City Region Food Systems, currently implemented in eight city regions in Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Senegal, Sri Lanka, The Netherlands, and Zambia. The paper analyses the content, definition and delimitations of the concept of City Region Food Systems by presenting two case studies from Latin America (Quito and Medellín), and discusses first advances in policy uptake and territorial food planning.

Highlights

At present, more than 50 percent of the world’s population is living in urban areas and this is expected to rise to 66 percent by 2050, a growth that will especially occur in the developing world [1]
Public concern over: these multiple problems and a growing support of consumers and wider society for healthy and safe food; improved food governance and transparency; and, more generally, for food production and consumption patterns that contribute to sustainable development, in recent years has contributed to a growing interest in City Region Food Systems (CRFS) [2,6,7]
This paper describes the assessment methodology, and explores how the CRFS concept can facilitate the integration of food-related issues into urban planning with a focus on two case studies of Latin American cities

Summary

Introduction

More than 50 percent of the world’s population is living in urban areas and this is expected to rise to 66 percent by 2050, a growth that will especially occur in the developing world [1]. Preservation and sustainable management of agricultural lands in rural and peri-urban areas can help to enhance water retention, reduce flooding, or mitigate increasing temperatures, reducing the climate change vulnerability of both urban and rural areas [12,13] These same studies stress the need to integrate food into the urban agenda, enabling the involvement of all key local stakeholders, with particular attention to smallholder farmers and urban dwellers, and ensuring coordination and collaboration across horizontal (different government departments and sectors) as well as vertical governance (across local, provincial, and national authorities) levels. This paper describes the assessment methodology, and explores how the CRFS concept can facilitate the integration of food-related issues into urban planning with a focus on two case studies of Latin American cities

The City Region Food System Concept

The FAO and RUAF Approach to Assessing and Strengthening CRFS

Case Study 1

Case Study 2

Strategies for Improving the Sustainability and Resiliencee ooff CCRRFFSS

Mapping and Assessing CRFS

Need for Developing Integrated Territorial Governance Mechansisms