Food and Agriculture in Urbanized Societies: Volume 26

Data on the food system's impact on environment, society and health point to a policy mismatch between current food consumption trends and long term viability. The role of public policy in this state of affairs requires critical attention. Public policy is generally weak and still dominated by a fixation on productionism and failing to integrate equally pressing concerns. Instead the facilitating power and responsibilities of the state are too often side-stepped. A new public policy approach is required that addresses the multi-criteria nature of how we assess contemporary food systems and their challenges. The role of the state is key to any transformation but states have been weak to support the creation of better infrastructure that would normalise what society and ecosystems really need namely sustainable diets from sustainable food systems. A genuinely systemic policy approach is required for urban populations, one which gives equal emphasis to all sector of food supply chains, not just primary production. The chapter explores ideological and practical logjams which hinder the pursuit of twenty-first-century progress. These include a reluctance to confront limitations in mainstream economics and uncritical acceptance of consumer power. Only the state has the potential legitimacy to facilitate a food system transformation and to provide the foundational economy which would normalise low impact living and eating.

The chapter examines the current macro-governance of agri-food in a contemporary sense, taking changes in the UK and more broadly Europe. It first outlines a recent ongoing period of what is called ‘Disruptive Governance’. This emerged in the UK, the USA and indeed Brazil after the prolonged fiscal and financial crisis which brought about economic austerity in these countries over the past two decades. This relatively new disruptive phase, has now become more engrained into wider political and institutional structures and cultures, and indeed re-enforced earlier neo-liberal rounds of political articulation. Whilst there are far wider in effects than with agri-food systems, it is having a profound effect upon the stability and security of current food and farming systems. The chapter then explores the unfolding implications for agri-food in terms of policy changes, further market concentration and further financialisation. At a regional scale, we look at how these macro governance and regulatory forces are impacting in contrasting regional contexts: the UK, Wales and rural North West England (Cheshire and Shropshire). Finally, in conclusion, we ask to what extent these conditions are indeed tempered by longer-running and alternative radical shifts in agro-food systems, and the degree to which these can become mainstreamed. What do these trends suggest for sustainable food transitions and the further application and appropriateness of regime theory and governance?

This chapter considers the place of responsibility in confronting ecological sustainability and social equity problems in the food system. We present two illustrations addressing the following question: In what ways does responsibility present a way to close the metabolic rift in line with the vision of the global food sovereignty movement? First, using the example of Metro-Vancouver in Canada, we consider the ways in which urban people claim responsibility for land protection through the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands, with an associated responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate and harvest food. Second, we discuss how deepening relational responsibility in legal and regulatory frameworks might hold the corporate food regime accountable in the Canadian context to address their role in and responsibility for mitigating an increasingly risky world, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the responsibility of urban people to mobilise in solidarity with food movements, and against the corporate food regime in particular, will play a critical role in supporting the transition to sustainable and just food systems. This applies both to finding new ways to claim responsibility for this transition and to hold those actors that have disproportionately benefitted from the corporate food regime responsible. Such a reworking of responsibility is especially necessary as the context for food systems change becomes increasingly urbanised and risky.

The debate concerning the role of business in society has a long tradition in business ethics and economics. The dispute over the purpose of business has been commonly associated with the issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The concept of CSR is based on the idea that corporate behaviour should not only ensure returns to shareholders, but also consider social and environmental issues. In this chapter, we will describe some concepts related to the purpose of business in society, looking to the evolution of sustainability in business, from CSR approach to ESG and Benefit Corporations, and will show a case study based on an Italian firm, Aboca, one of the first to introduce the Benefit Corporation certification in Italy.

Territorial food markets and governance have emerged as a key mechanism for the design and implementation new food systems and policies aimed at sustainable cities. However, the many existing policies tend to overlook the way food markets and supply strategies work. This chapter analyses governance in traditional agri-food markets in Brazil, aiming to demonstrate how, in different contexts, the economic interactions between actors are embedded in a set of social institutions (cultural values), which define modes of governance, participation in the markets and can be potential to fostering new (sustainable) rural-urban relations. These institutions challenge and compete with formal regulatory requirements imposed by the public authorities, which often disrupt and/or inhibit the development of local and traditional production and consumption practices, posing obstacles to the fostering rural-urban relations and the construction of solid local policies for food supply. Empirical data refer to three traditional Brazilian markets: the Feira do Pequeno Produtor in Passo Fundo, located in the South of Brazil, the Feira Central de Campina Grande and the Feira de Caruaru, both located in the Northeast of the country. The results point to the necessity and centrality to cities food supply policies recognise, encourage and institutionalise these markets traditional institutions in order to overcome supermarketisation and consolidate sustainable food systems. These process could be able to remove traditional markets from marginalise, promoting not only their survival, but their growth and consolidation as a source of decent work, healthy food and new sustainable rural-urban relationships.

This chapter focuses on a pathway for the creation of a just and equitable food system in South Africa that contributes to achieving the right to food and livelihoods for all. It is based on years of ongoing research on food systems in South Africa and Tanzania as well as a current research project on the impact of COVID-19 regulations on food systems in South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania. The chapter starts with looking at the challenges of the food system in South Africa, the problematic approaches to addressing these challenges and how the situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. Then it explores a different way of looking at and transforming the food system that moves away from the focus on corporate driven solutions and applies a different lens to analysing who the stakeholders are. The argument is for the advancement of economic actors identified by where they sit on the intersecting continuums from more marketised to more socially embedded, from more elite to the subaltern, and from larger to smaller scale. This lens makes it clear which type of enterprises and economic actors need to be supported and the alliances that need to be built to create a pathway to a better food future in the urbanising South African society and perhaps elsewhere as well.

We are experiencing a period of adaptation of our agri-food systems to the context of climate change, thus witnessing the incorporation of several more ecological and socially inclusive practices. In this sense, this chapter seeks to understand the role of civil society in promoting sustainable food systems based on Brazilian experiences over the last three decades. First, the role of civil society in the construction of new agroecological markets is discussed, bringing the experience of the consumer cooperative COOLMEIA, which started the construction of the first agroecological fair in Brazil, the Ecological Farmers Fair in Porto Alegre. Then the civil society activism engaged on establishment of the Human Right to Healthy and Adequate Food is discussed, highlighting the importance of social movements and civil society organisations in the construction of a democratic political system. At last, the trajectory of the civil society as actors participating in the formal instance of State governance through their performance in the National Council for Food Security and Nutrition – CONSEA, presenting the historical context, achievements and struggles. Finally, the chapter concludes with a section reviewing lessons learned and possible challenges for civil society participation in the debate on agri-food systems in the future.

This chapter presents the historical process of the Urban Agriculture (UA) at Rosario, in search of a socio-productive model with a high component of social inclusivity. It considers the first glimpses in 1987 through the conformation of the first Urban Group Farm until the present day where UA has become a public policy. This process has created its own dynamics under the different organisational structures of the municipality, by successfully integrating the production, the circulation and the consumerism of healthy products through fairs and community-based organisations; also incorporating the different suburbs of the city. Agroecology is presented as the conceptual and methodological framework. The systematisation of this experience aims to make visible the course pursued by the UA in Rosario offering a description which allows to understand its processes and to obtain more specific details of the bases and principles of Agroecology. The main results that are highlighted from this process are (1) Consolidation of a municipal public policy of urban agriculture, which guarantees democratisation and access to means of production for agroecological food cultivation, its commercialisation and distribution in the different districts of the city; (2) Social transformation of neighbours who found in the horticultural identity a personal and collective life project, consolidated as reference in the city, the country and the region; (3) Presence of a critical citizenship that is identified as a protagonist, through different roles on sustainability of the Urban Agriculture Programme.