Urban Food Actions Platform

Food systems should ensure that enough nutritious food is available for everyone, whether they live in urban or rural areas, and they are poor households. The challenge is to do so while minimizing any harmful impact on the environment. 

This thematic area focuses on efficient and resilient food supply and distribution systems. For instance strengthening the rural-urban food supply chain in order to face and adapt to disruptive events; developing sustainable food transportation and logistics planning in order to reduce carbon emissions by improving alternative fuels or means of transport and thus improve connections with peri-urban and rural nearby areas; strengthening or developing energy efficient municipal public markets including farmers markets, retail and wholesale markets; creating an enabling environment for the informal food system sector and their stakeholders.

Related Resources

Food supply and distribution - Reports & Case Studies
In 2012, the City of Toronto launched the “Grab Some Good” initiative which distributes fresh food to low-income neighborhoods and community agencies serving meals to vulnerable groups. The food is accessed in innovative ways such as using a converted bus that functions as a store on wheels, pop-up market or...
Canada (North America)
2018 - FAO, EStà, City of Toronto
Food production and ecosystem management, Food supply and distribution - Guidelines
An analysis of diverse options for marketing products from agroecology The purpose of this study is to explore whether and how products from agroecological production systems are being valued in markets. The study is based on a meta-analysis of 12 case studies (Benin, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,...
(Global coverage)
2018 - Loconto, A.; Jimenez, A.; Vandecandelaere, E.
Governance and planning, Social and economic equity, Food supply and distribution - Directories
The Guiding Principles and Framework for Action project build on a growing understanding of how urbanization is reshaping the world’s urban and rural landscapes. While urbanization has brought prosperity to many regions there is also a growing and increasingly severe development gap between urban and rural areas which demands new...
(Global coverage)
2018 - Coll.
Governance and planning, Food production and ecosystem management, Food supply and distribution - Reports & Case Studies
This video shows the FAO City-to-City Cooperation initiative launched a pilot project in 2017 allowing Dakar (Senegal) to share its techniques on micro gardens with Douala (Cameroon) and Praia (Cabo Verde). This video describes how Dakar shared its experience on micro gardens with Praia with the objective of i) raising...
Cape Verde, Senegal (Africa)
2018 - FAO
Governance and planning, Food production and ecosystem management, Food supply and distribution, Food loss and waste - Guidelines
This guide is part of a collective effort to provide motivation and support for those actors interested in building more sustainable food systems in urban contexts. This document has been developed under the framework of Foodlinks1, a European project where civil society organizations, policy makers and academics have come together...
(Europe)
2018 - Foodlinks