This is a thorough and extremely well-written report on urban food systems. It is comprehensive and yet clearly explains the complexity of urban and regional food systems and urban food policy choices. There are several areas in which I feel the report could be strengthened and made more relevant to policy makers and advocates:
While there are discussions throughout about social determinants of malnourishment like poverty and time scarcity, and a short section on the interconnectedness of food and other policies, the discussion of those upstream factors should be more central to the report, as issues of poverty, inequality, and the exploitation and oppression stemming from social determinants of health are key to addressing food security and nutrition. An upstream focus also suggests the need for new pathways to change food systems, such as immigration policy, civil rights laws, housing, education, childcare, and health services, and justice-focused climate policies.
Related to this point, the report should more clearly and prominently address the true cost of living in cities, which varies significantly North and South, from large to small cities, and between those connected to the global economy and those in “disarticulated” economies (c.f. Amin, de Janvry). There are movements to measure true costs, as opposed to conventional poverty measures, as a recent charter revision in NYC illustrates, and to identify necessary interventions (e.g., subsidized rents) to facilitate healthier, more equitable conditions.
The idea of social oppression (of women, people of color, immigrants, lower castes, etc.) as a root cause of food system inequities is woven throughout but I think deserves clearer articulation in the report.
The concept of the foodshed is a useful construct, yet more attention should be paid to their interactions with alternative geographies of food systems, e.g., transnational food supply chains, digitally mediated distribution channels, social-media information flows, cultural foodsheds experienced by migrants. Just as the concept of a foodshed, first articulated by Walter Hedden in 1929, was based on the technology of the time (e.g., milksheds were smaller than foodsheds due to the limits of refrigerated transport), foodsheds are evolving in response to digitalization. More deliberately discussing trends in food system geographies, e.g., digitalization and its effect on local food distribution and global shifts in food practices, would be valuable.
Economic inequality and social disparities are discussed throughout, but a more explicit discussion of food gentrification would help to explain food retail transitions (e.g., supermarketization), the consequences (intended or unintended) of infrastructure and housing investments on food prices and access, and the exacerbation of social disparities reflected in food availability as cities change, especially for pockets of low income people remaining within increasingly affluent surrounding neighborhoods (e.g., social housing residents in gentrified neighborhoods). The politics (e.g., rezoning, public investments) and impact of urban development on food environments of existing residents are rarely considered and this report should focus attention on the oversight.
While the report addresses the role of private business (e.g., supermarketization, marketing) in shaping food environments, I think a more explicit discussion of the commercial determinants of food security and nutrition is warranted. Food marketing is more than targeted, it often preys on low income, minoritized communities. The food system is one of the largest employers of low-wage, often disempowered workers in cities, and this is likely to accelerate as digital platforms become an increasingly common way to exploit vulnerable workers. Food corporations have shaped and increasingly shape food products, tastes, consumption patterns, and food buying and preparation practices. The report mentions interventions like soda taxes and controls on advertising, and incentives for healthy food, but a discussion of the role of corporations in shaping urban development, city infrastructure, the political process, policies like taxes, and therefore the food system – and the potential and limits of cities counteracting corporate power – would be a valuable contribution.
I would suggest more explicit and detailed attention to food labor, as it is both a source of exploitation and poverty but also could be a route to healthier food (e.g., in public canteens with upskilling of cooks) and higher wage jobs. The labor movement could be an ally of FSN advocates. Examples of food labor activism are most prominent in the Global North, but not exclusively.
Related to food labor, the report discusses right-to-food framing but should discuss the role of activism in reframing, making salient, and advancing policy in urban food systems. In my experience, food policy councils are helpful but inherently moderate voices for change. Food riots, strikes and boycotts, insurgent urbanism actions (e.g., taking over land to grow or sell food) put issues on the front burner and motivate lawmakers to act. How do activist movements relate to governmental and government processes? What strategies work? What support is needed to make them successful?
The report discusses future trends throughout, but it might be helpful to have a section on urban food futures. Climate change is obviously a game changer, both in terms of its impact on periurban agriculture but also its impact on urban budgets and priorities, development patterns, investment in risk mitigation, population migration, food safety, etc. But other trends are important as well: digitalization; AI and food knowledge; Ozempic and other new anti-obesity medications; political trends such as the rise of authoritarian governments and the potential for widening income inequalities.
Mr. Nevin Cohen