Feeding the City: the urban food movement Feeding Bristol in the Future Conference, The Council House, Bristol 10 March 2010 Kevin Morgan School of City and Regional Planning Cardiff University

The forgotten planning domain Among basic essentials for life – air, water, shelter, food – the latter has been absent from the planning agenda (APA) The food system has been “a stranger to the planning field” (Pothukuchi and Kaufman, 2000) Possible reasons:  Food is a rural not an urban issue – but what about urban agriculture?  Food is invisible because it’s plentiful – but what about nutritious food and under-served areas?  Food is just “too big to see” – Caroline Steel in Hungry City

Food becomes visible Food has moved up the political agenda for many reasons:  looming crises of climate change  food chain accounts for 31% of GHG emissions in the EU  burgeoning problems of obesity/hunger  food system makes huge demands on land, water, energy and transport  food price hikes in 2008 triggered urban riots  food security is now deemed a national security issue  G20 convenes its first ever meeting on agriculture

Food 2030 Food 2030, the new UK strategy, is a curate’s egg Good bits  First government-wide food strategy since 1945  Put security and sustainability on the political agenda Bad bits  Too much emphasis on voluntarism  Too much emphasis on consumers  Did little to address the powerful actors in the food chain  FSA now backtracking on traffic light food labelling

The uniqueness of food Food is unlike any other sector – we ingest it The multifunctional character of food means it connects with many activities that are central to urban planning  Human health & wellbeing  Environmental integrity  Transport  Energy  Water  Land use  Urban regeneration/local economic development  Cultural identity/place marketing

The rise of urban food planning Urban food planning comes of age  London/Amsterdam  New York/San Francisco/Toronto  Kampala/ Dar es Salaam Who are the food planners?  All professionals and campaigners who strive to create a sustainable food system  Biggest problem – too localised/fragmented to be scaled up and replicated because of “projectitis”

Unpicking the urban foodscape The urban foodscape has many facets: Public plates  where low cost masquerades as best value Food service  where transparency is absent Supermarkets  where localisation should be a planning requirement Public spaces  for farmers’ markets and healthy food zones around schools

Green cities/connected cities Urban food planning is about making connections at three fundamental levels Connected city governance – the internal conversation  from departmental silos to wellbeing networks Connected city governance – the external conversation  tapping the creativity of civil society/food policy councils Connected city-regions  reconnecting the city with its rural hinterland on economic, ecological and cultural grounds  cities creating markets for their regions  regions feeding their cities

Further information The Urban Foodscape: World Cities and the New Food Equation (K. Morgan and R. Sonnino, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2010) Local and Green, Global and Fair: The Ethical Foodscape and the Politics of Care (K. Morgan, Environment & Planning A, 2010) Feeding the City: The Challenge of Urban Food Planning (K. Morgan, International Planning Studies, 2010) The School Food Revolution: Public Food and the Challenge of Sustainable Development, K. Morgan and R. Sonnino, Earthscan, 2008)