Strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems to achieve food security and nutrition, in the
context of urbanization and rural transformation, is the latest report from the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS). Key highlights of the report include:
- Assessment of challenges: the report identifies bottlenecks in achieving food security and
nutrition in urban and peri-urban areas, emphasizing the need for tailored interventions. - Linkages with other systems: it explores how urban and peri-urban food systems intersect
with water, energy, and mobility systems, crucial for achieving food security and nutrition
goals. - Transformation and equity: strategies for transforming urban food systems to be more
equitable, accessible, sustainable, and resilient are discussed. - Policy recommendations: the report provides action-oriented policy recommendations
aimed at policymakers to address the unique challenges of urban and peri-urban food
security and nutrition.
“We support the report’s conclusion that tackling urban and peri-urban food insecurity will take
portfolios of actions across all aspects of agrifood systems in conjunction with actions in inter-
related systems”, Corinna Hawkes, Director of Agrifood Systems and Food Safety of FAO stated.
Danielle Resnick, who is one of the members of the drafting team and a Senior Research
Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) emphasized, “Better understanding multi-level governance issues and urban political economy is fundamental to achieve genuine policy
commitment for tackling the food system challenges in cities around the world.”
Dr. Resnick will be an honored guest in Madison this October, to celebrate the CALS Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems 35th anniversary. She will discuss her work on food systems governance, and her book The political economy of food system transformation: Pathways to progress in a polarized world. Dr. Resnick’s visit is supported by the Bradshaw-Knight Foundation and the Weston Roundtable Lecture Series, part of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Sustainability in the Global Environment. Watch this space for more information on her visit.
The overarching recommendations included the necessity to:
- Integrate food systems into urban planning and include other sectors in cities for food
sensitive planning and design. - Ensure that urban food policy focuses on affordable, healthy, and nutritious diets to meet the
needs of low-income groups. - Acknowledge and support the role of informal sectors and actors, while balancing
between food safety and informality. - Strengthen local and regional food systems approaches, while recognizing that many will continue to depend on food from elsewhere.
- Invest in information technology and digital systems for improving the evidence base
policy making, while ensuring the access to technology for informal sectors and small food
producers. - Protect decent work and employment in food systems.
The HLPE report is available at: https://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/publications/hlpe-19
The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) is the science-policy
interface of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the foremost inclusive and evidence-
based international and intergovernmental platform for food security and nutrition (FSN).
A separate report entitled Food from Somewhere: building food security and resilience through territorial markets – which was published concurrently by IPES-Food and written by many of those involved in the HLPE report — finds that local and regional markets and food supply networks improve access to nutritious food, resilience to shocks, environment, and community cohesion. CIAS has and continues to work on regional food systems since its inception in 1989. The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) is an international non-profit thinktank headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. This aligned report is available at: https://ipes-food.org/report/food-from-somewhere/