Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper examines the making of urban sustainable food provisioning through the case of Barcelona. Barcelona is seeking to develop a more sustainable food system. It aims to green its municipal food markets by reducing the distances from which the food is sourced from. This has been labelled by the city of Barcelona as “proximity food”. We shed light on how, and to what extent, proximity food contributes to making the city more sustainable. To frame our analysis, we employ concepts from networks and flows as developed in sociology by Manuel Castells. We examine the provisioning processes that proximity food goes through before they enter retail markets. This includes an analysis of connections with urban energy and water flows. This so-called water, energy and food Urban Nexus, which we argue to be a key factor in the greening of urban food systems. This means that sustainability of food is not just determined by physical distances between its provisioning processes per se but by the specific ways in which food flows relate to connections (both physical and social) with energy and water.
Highlights
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) are pushing cities forward to develop sustainability agendas and action plans to address climate change and greenhouse gases emissions
We examine the provisioning processes that proximity food goes through before they enter retail markets. This includes an analysis of connections with urban energy and water flows. This so-called water, energy and food Urban Nexus, which we argue to be a key factor in the greening of urban food systems
To better understand Barcelona’s development towards a more sustainable food city, we look into the provisioning processes for proximity food flows e.g. the distribution, wholesaling, and local production of this kind of food
Summary
Food has been addressed in terms of public food procurement (e.g. local and organic food served at school canteens); urban farming initiatives; bridging the rural-urban divide (Sonnino 2009; see e.g. in Dubbeling 2013); and in terms of an urban governance response which looks to include food as an asset of cities (Sonnino 2009; see e.g. Milan Urban Food Policy Pact 2015) In any such approach, gains towards sustainable food cities require a rearrangement of their food system as a configuration or network that organizes flows of urban food. It analyzes food proximity distribution through markets and their relationship with other upstream processes within the proximity food network It discusses the main findings and reflects on the added value of using a broader WEF urban nexus perspective when addressing the puzzle of sustainability.
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