Processes of Participation in the Development of Urban Food Strategies: A Comparative Assessment of Exeter and Eindhoven

Aniek Hebinck,Daphne Page

doi:10.3390/su9060931

Abstract

Urban food strategies are increasingly being used as means to address a multitude of challenges presented by food system failings. The use of participatory approaches has become common practice in the field of urban food systems planning. These approaches are believed to democratize, legitimize and increase effectiveness of addressing challenges. Despite these “promises”, they have also been viewed as problematic for being unbalanced and lacking accountability. This paper sets out to compare the creation and use of new participatory spaces in two initiatives in two European cities in their on-going attempts to formulate urban food strategies through multi-actor processes. This is explored through operationalisation of two key concepts essential to participatory approaches: participation and accountability. As such, the paper addresses how participatory processes for urban food strategies can be conceptualised when policy making involves the interplay of actors, knowledges and spaces. We conclude that within the two cases, ample attention is given to get a cross-section of the types of participants involved, while accountability is an aspect still under-represented. Based on the two cases, we argue that incorporation of accountability in particular will be instrumental in the development and implementation of more mature urban food strategies. However, it is essential for participatory processes to not completely break from more “traditional” policy processes, at risk of limiting progress in strategy development and deployment.

Highlights

Urban Food Strategies have become regarded as a pivotal point of change in addressing food systems failings and transitioning to sustainable food systems at the local level [1,2,3,4,5]
Based on experiences gathered from two research projects, this paper aims to review participatory processes that contribute to the formulation of UFSs
Urban food strategies have become regarded as a pivotal point of change to address said challenges

Summary

Introduction

Urban Food Strategies have become regarded as a pivotal point of change in addressing food systems failings and transitioning to sustainable food systems at the local level [1,2,3,4,5]. The willingness of cities to take action is visible in the increasing number of urban strategies being developed all over the world One reason for this being that “UFSs aim to place food on the urban agenda, capitalizing on efforts made by existing actors and creating synergistic effects by linking different stakeholder groups” [22]. Through a community-based food systems approach themes that typically overlap and link to various municipal departmental mandates—such as food security, public health, and social justice—can be addressed effectively [22,23] Such policy tools can take on various forms, including food charters, food strategies, and food action plans [23,24]. These in turn will shape the “aims, objectives and actions that are appropriate and achievable” for a UFS [22]

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