Half the world’s population is now urbanised and cities are assuming a larger role in debates about the security and sustainability of the global food system. Hence, planning for sustainable food production and consumption is becoming an increasingly important issue for planners, policymakers, designers, farmers, suppliers, activists, business and scientists alike. The rapid growth of the food planning movement owes much to the unique multi-functional character of food systems. In the wider contexts of global climate change, resource depletion, a burgeoning world population, competing food production systems and diet-related public health concerns, new paradigms for urban and regional planning capable of supporting sustainable and equitable food systems are urgently needed. This book addresses this urgent need. By working at a range of scales and with a variety of practical and theoretical models, this book reviews and elaborates definitions of sustainable food systems, and begins to define ways of achieving them. Four different themes have been defined as entry-points into the discussion of ‘sustainable food planning’. These are (1) urban food governance, (2) integrating health, environment and society, (3) urban agriculture (4) planning and design.

For more information about the content of the book or about online ordering of the book, please check the website of Wageningen Academic Publishers.

Endorsements

‘This is an important compilation on a timely topic. It brings together the work of planners and designers from both sides of the Atlantic, and challenges us to think about how to create food systems that deliver healthy, just, and sustainable communities and vital places. The book moves dexterously between the grassroots and policy halls and draws valuable lessons for theory and practice.’

Dr. Kami Pothukuchi, Department of Urban Studies & Planning, Wayne State University

‘To address the problems of urban food production we need to look at the city in a completely different way. This timely book will act as an important source for those who have an ethical interest, not only in food, but in improving the quality and justice of life in our city communities.’

Prof. Flora Samuel, School of Architecture, University of Sheffield and member of Royal Institute of British Architects Research and Development Committee

‘This publication provides a lot of “food for thought”, not just for persons professionally involved in the food sector and officials dealing with national food policies, but especially for local and regional authorities, urban planners and architects, NGOs and community based organisations, health and environmental officers and concerned consumers. Against the background of the growing awareness of the elevated social, health and ecological costs of the mainstream globalized agri-food system, this book analyses the emergence of a new vision and many initiatives that seek to reconnect (sustainable) production with (sustainable) consumption …. Hence, the book delivers what is promised in its title: it discusses new concepts related to food and sustainable urban/regional planning based on a critical review of innovative practices at various levels.’

Ir. Henk de Zeeuw, Director RUAF Foundation

 ’For those who work to address the future challenges facing city development, this book is a must. Why? Because today practitioners and professionals are being asked to understand urban food production within a social, economic and ecological context. This book shows us how these connections are being made. The chapters are accessible and fascinating and will help beginners and experts to deal with food production in their everyday work.’

Dr. Carlo W. Becker, bgmr Landscape Architects Berlin/Leipzig and Technical University Cottbus

As mentioned in previous posts on the Rural Sociology weblog, an international conference entitled ‘Agriculture in an Urbanizing Society’ will be held from 1 to 4 April 2012 in Wageningen. A whole range of different topics and research findings will be presented and discussed in 20 different working groups, including a variety of food themes such as civic food networks, public food procurement, urban agriculture, transition approaches in urban food provisioning, and urban and regional planning. The deadline for submitting abstracts was originally 20 December 2011 but the conference committees, in consultation with the working group convenors, have decided to postpone this deadline by one month. So if you are interested to present and discuss your research activities (or plans) in one of the working groups, please send your abstract to the convenor of the working group before 20 January 2012. You are kindly requested to use the abstract submission form.

From 30th May to 2nd June 2012 the 10th Congress of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics (EurSafe) which will be held in Tübingen (Germany). The conference theme is Climate Change and Sustainable Development: Ethical Perspectives on Land Use and Food Production.

Climate change is one of the major framing conditions for sustainable development of agriculture and food production. This is connected to ongoing changes in and of land-use practices which are related to local, regional and global scales, often dubbed as ‘glocal’ situations. That characterisation also applies to the closely related land and waters use domains of forestry and fisheries.

Agricultural and food ethics and its adjacent fields need to address well known, but aggravated ‘old’ problems. These are, among others, desertification due to temperature increase, changing precipitation regimes, unsustainable and/or unfair land-use and water regimes, pressure on arable land due to the loss of coastal areas, soil degradation and suburban sprawl, and the strain placed on both environment and animal welfare as a consequence of a growing worldwide demand for animal products. Also the manifold socio-economic implications on justice and fairness have to be investigated from different ethical perspectives.

At the same time, however, climate change creates specific effects: There are and will be new irreversible changes of natural and anthropogenic systems. Mitigation and adaptation measures to counter or slow down climate change have already resulted in considerable changes in agri- and silvicultural land-use. This is mainly but not only due to the significant increase in growing plants for energy supply (“biofuels”). Another perspective is the purchase or long-term tenancy of arable land or of water rights in the countries of the global south by wealthy nations and by transnational enterprises. In the case of animal production, specific dilemmas arise when a narrow focus on carbon efficiency favours intensive production systems which are decoupled from many traditional agricultural considerations.

These issues are only some of the many dimensions which demand reflection from an agricultural and food ethics perspective and thus examination by the community of scholars involved in EurSafe. The 10th EurSafe Congress will address the topic of climate change and sustainable development under four main perspectives: (1) food production, (2) preservation of natural resources, (3) lifestyles (4) general philosophical and historical issues of climate change, sustainable development and food ethics. There are overlaps, so sessions within the programme will examine different foci providing a stimulating and challenging array of contributions to the Congress.

More information about the 1oth EurSafe Congress can be found at the Congress website. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 30 September 2011!

Carrot City is a traveling exhibit that shows how the design of buildings and cities can enable the production of food in the city. It explores the relationships between design and urban food systems as well as the impact that agricultural issues have on the design of urban spaces and buildings. The focus is on how the increasing interest in growing food within the city, supplying food locally, and food security in general, is changing urban design and built form. Carrot City showcases projects in Toronto and other Canadian and American cities, as well as relevant international examples from around the world. The exhibition contains a mix of projects that were recently completed or are currently under way, and visionary, speculative design proposals by both professional designers and students, which illustrate the potential for design that responds to food issues. The exhibit explores these issues at different scales, the city scale, the community scale, housing, rooftops and the products that make all of this possible.

Main curators of Carrot City are Mark Gorgolewski, June Komisar and Joe Nasr of Ryerson University Toronto (Canada). It has traveled to New York City, Montreal and Casablanca. Carroty City is now coming to Europe with exhibitions at the Technical University in Berlin (30 September – 30 October 2011) and the Technical University in Munich (8 – 26 November 2011). For more information about the exhibits and opening ceremonies have a look at the flyer.

An interesting discussion forum about issues of food security and nutrition is the FSN forum hosted by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN. In the past years many topics relevant to PUREFOOD and FOODLINKS have been discussed, such as the ones on ‘Public procurement of agricultural good’, ‘Food, agriculture & cities’, ‘Climate change and food security’ and ‘Governance for food security’. The most recent topic is ‘Street food’. Another discussion forum relevant to both PUREFOOD and FOODLINKS is the Food-for-the-Cities community (also linked to FAO), which is one of the communities within the Development through Dialogue groups (Dgroups). Participating in these discussions may be relevant for several reasons: enlarging your network, finding out what the ‘hot’ topics for discussion are (which can be an inspiration for research topics and questions), introducing others to your work and/or the PUREFOOD and FOODLINKS projects, et cetera. Regarding the latter, I will post a short message on the Food-for-the-Cities Dgroups to inform the members about this weblog.