FSEC urban

Urban and peri-urban agriculture has potential to nourish around 1 billion city dwellers, i.e., 30% of global urban population, reducing emissions from food transportation and contributing to the livelihoods of the urban and peri-urban poor. Still, a major challenge for cities is to nourish their population with healthy and sustainable diets as most urban consumers are disconnected from food production processes. With expansion of dwellings and commercial buildings to areas that were once peri-urban, the informal production of fruits and vegetables that had occurred on marginal lands is no longer possible. This has implications for the availability of fruits and vegetables in city markets as well as the livelihoods of those formerly producing them. Promoting urban and peri-urban agriculture can help reconnect urban residents to food they consume together with multiple social, economic, and environmental benefit. It may also play an important role in their food and nutrition security as well as those relatively more well off who are able to purchase it in markets. Therefore, the FSEC urban aims to highlight roles of urban and peri-urban agriculture in sustainable transformation of food systems and cities by providing healthy diets (mainly fruits and vegetables) to city residents, while providing livelihoods for those producing fruits and vegetables. For this, we will apply a mixed method consisting of literature analysis to understand the state-of-art on urban food systems; a rapid global assessment on potential of urban and peri-urban agriculture to nourish city residents with healthy diets; case studies of a selected cities’ food systems; and investigation on interlinkages between sustainable urban food systems and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The overall project goal is to highlight roles of urban and peri-urban agriculture in sustainable transformation of food systems and cities by providing healthy diets (mainly fruits and vegetables) to city residents, while providing livelihoods for those producing fruits and vegetables and considering the underlying social, economic, and environmental opportunities and challenges.

PIK contribution: - systematically assess literature to understand state-of-art on urban agriculture, urban food systems, and urban foodshed - conduct a rapid assessment on potential of urban and peri-urban agriculture to nourish city residents with healthy diets - conduct case studies of few cities in global North and South based on existing studies on their urban foodshed and urban and peri-urban agricultural potentials - investigate underlying social, economic, and environmental opportunities and challenges in achieving the potential of urban and peri-urban agriculture. - investigate contributions of sustainable urban and peri-urban agriculture to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)