Local food policies from a city-region approach: Fostering the SFSCs in the Region of Madrid

Abstract

Local scale is increasingly taking the lead in the food system transition to sustainability with a focus on city-region based food provision. Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are key in this approach. This paper has an explorative rationale to better understand the role of the local and regional policies fostering SFSCs. This paper focuses on SFSCs; specifically, on barriers, and measures to deal with these barriers, from the local government's point of view. It considers why municipal measures to support SFSCs could be enhanced from the city-region food-systems (CRFS) approach, particularly, this study elaborates on the CRFS approach as a framework to tackle barriers and leverage potential solutions for municipalities to foster SFSCs. A mapping of SFSC public local initiatives in the Region of Madrid along with 35 semi-structured interviews to council members were conducted. Municipalities face, among others, issues related to the limited production, budget, and demand constraints. Regional legislation or improving the access to information about measures to support SFSCs, along with higher inter-municipal and cross-scale collaboration, are some actions that imply a territorial approach. The results give insights of how the CRFS approach has a great potential to address the necessities and barriers of municipal food policies.