Sustainable Food Monitor

Outreach Issues features Thomas Forster’s article

in May 5th, 2009 issue:

Regions Feeding Cities - Urban Rural Linkages for Food Security

By: Thomas Forster, International Partnership for Sustainable Agriculture (IPSA)

A sensible response to the convergent crises of food and energy prices, along with economic and climate vulnerability, is to give communities the tools to create more, lot less resilience in the face of multiple crises. The negotiating text for CSD17, while bringing attention to the need for new investment in market infrastructure, does not make explicit reference to the important relationship between “cities and their countrysides”.

As research on the power of public food procurement recently has shown, the enormous purchasing power of global cities and their institutions can be an engine for new investment in the rural sector if this power is directed to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits. The “School Food Revolution” in numerous cities in both developed and developing countries has been at the forefront of a new agricultural model bringing back “home grown” feeding at larger scales.

In eastern and southern Africa there are new metropolitan development partnerships that put locally based food production at the center of food security strategies. In New York, where one of six children is food insecure, innovative urban-rural partnerships that bring healthy food to poor neighborhoods through city and country farms are being embraced in city food policy and new food distribution investments.

What national and international farm policy has not been able to achieve—to give farmers fair prices and provide affordable healthy food to consumers—urban rural partnerships with policy support may be able to achieve. Such partnerships can refocus on investment in farm-to-market supply chains, revitalizing markets where they have been allowed to deteriorate.

The new attention to regional and local food systems need not be parochial, but part of interlinked trade between city-farm regions. During this CSD, local authorities organizations such as ICLEI, NGOs like Heifer International and the International Partners for Sustainable Agriculture and others, have been exploring with other major groups concrete mechanisms to scale up urban food strategies to create sustainable city-regions.

Among the policies needed to strengthen the resilience of communities and their countrysides, governments can promote an enabling environment for increased urban rural linkages in all regions. The exchange of good practices and needed policy at local, national and international levels requires networking between communities pursuing urban rural linkages. CSD major groups are calling on governments for these kinds of policy support.

The side event Regions Feeding Cities at 6:15 pm on Tuesday the 5th of May (conf. room 2) will highlight the important role of cities in diverse partnerships with civil society to promote new investment and enabling policy for local and regional food systems found around the world. The importance of policies supporting public food provisioning through new market infrastructure and home grown school feeding will be highlighted by speakers for inclusion in the CSD 17 policy decision.

Related to the Regions Feeding Cities side event, a CSD “Vibrant Markets Tour” will be held from 7:30 am to 3 pm on Saturday, the 9th of May. Delegates of governments and international civil society may reserve space on this free tour by visiting http://vibrantmarketstour.eventbrite.com, or for the City Farms tour, visit http://cityfarmtour.eventbrite.com.

You can find back-issues of Outreach Issues here: http://sdin-ngo.net/outreachissues/outreachissues.php.

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