The contribution of urban garden cultivation to food self-sufficiency in areas at risk of food desertification during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

This paper assesses the contribution made by the cultivation of urban gardens to the food self-sufficiency of mountain municipalities at risk of food desertification during 2020 in South Tyrol (Italy). The pandemic-induced economic downturn and mobility restrictions have left more territories severely exposed to the adverse risk of food desertification. A food desert is a territory where people are food-insecure because of job/income loss or through the absence of food retail facilities. During lockdown, many non-essential firms were forced to close. This meant that many workers, especially those in more precarious positions, lost their jobs, while entrepreneurs had consistent financial shortcomings. Local population mobility was restricted to the municipality of residence, with reduced access to grocery stores outside that area. Disrupted food supply chains and panic buying stimulated short-term food shortages, emptied municipal food stores and meant that supplies often failed to meet local needs. This insecurity left mountain municipalities increasingly vulnerable to desertification. The most food-insecure areas are those that depend heavily on the tourism sector and those with limited access to food retail facilities or other organized forms of food supply in proximity. Their challenges through the period of Covid-19 have heightened questions about their access to food and possible initiatives to increase their food self-sufficiency. Among the initiatives most frequently debated in that period, gardening has been highly valued. This paper contributes to the debate by presenting a Decision Support System (DSS) that calculates the land required for food self-sufficiency in South Tyrolean municipalities and the percentage covered by the production of local urban gardens. The results demonstrate that urban gardens’ contribution to local food self-sufficiency is almost insignificant in these municipalities, representing less than 1 % of the municipal needs. Restricting the analysis to self-sufficiency in fruit and vegetable production only, findings derived from the DSS application confirm the insignificance of urban gardens’ production levels, which remains below 1 % of the municipal needs.