Integrated urban food system policies – how cities and towns can transform food systems for co-benefits

Urban areas face a serious challenge to ensure healthy, affordable, safe and sustainably produced food to their residents. Many cities and their inhabitants are disconnected from their food – e.g. where it comes from, how it is produced, the impact food production and consumption have on the environment, climate and health, and the complexity and fragility of food value chains –. The way in which cities deal with food is highly variable and often fragmented, but integrated urban food policies and social innovations providing co-benefits are progressively emerging throughout Europe.

A key issue to be addressed is that of poorly planned urban food environments that drive citizens, and children in particular, towards unhealthy packaged food that is high in calories, sugars, salt and saturated fat, which contributes to obesity and diet-related illnesses. Furthermore, different shocks disrupting urban food systems worldwide can exacerbate the already limited access to healthy food, in particular for the urban poor.

Cities have the potential to make healthy and sustainable food available, affordable and attractive to all, which will in turn reduce consumption-based GHG emissions, in a win-win situation for people and the planet.

Proposals under this topic should address the following four issues and be targeted to help at least 5 cities/towns lacking integrated food systems policies to take ambitious and decisive action:

1. Understanding: map local food systems, policies and actions, with a special focus on assessing short supply chains and urban food environments (including harmful marketing and advertising and unequal access to healthy food for the urban poor), and on developing local indicators and monitoring frameworks.
   This should be built on existing tools such as the “Food systems dashboard framework” and should include the development of food systems stakeholder maps, maps of the formal and informal food flows and retail channels and, especially relevant in case of food shock crisis, maps identifying the most vulnerable people and their access to nutritious food.
   This should include analysing the local responses to emergencies and take into account the environmental, social and economic dimension.
2. Governance: develop and evaluate innovative, multi-actor, urban food systems governance processes and capacities for science-backed integrated policy making and implementation actions that deliver on farm to fork strategy objectives and Food 2030 co-benefits for health, environment, climate, circularity and inclusion, while minimizing trade-offs. Special attention should be given to improving food environments, providing increased food access to vulnerable groups and fostering short supply chains.
3. Engaging: mobilise a wide diversity of food system actors from farm to fork (i.e. public and private, the financial sector, civil society and academia). Higher education institutions and research centres, in particular, should be engaged to collaboration with local actors to support evidence-based food policy development and to help provide local solutions to integrated food system challenges.
4. Mutual learning: reinforce or create new networks of cities and towns to share good practices and learn from and support each other. This implies involving cities with well-developed food policies to provide guidance and lessons learned, as well as new forms of collaboration/twinning.

Proposals should address inequalities in urban food systems, whether they be due to gender, race and other social categories.

Conducting inter and trans-disciplinary research and involving a wide diversity of food system actors is required to implement the multi actor approach (cf eligibility condition). In particular, a strong involvement of citizens and civil society, together with urban designers, design thinkers, social innovators, planners, social scientists and public authorities to strengthen relationships between urban planning and food choices and to develop new methods and approaches to innovation have to be ensured.

Proposals should set out a clear plan on how it will collaborate with other projects selected under this and any other relevant topic/call, e.g. by participating in joint activities, workshops, as well as common communication and dissemination activities.

Social innovation is recommended when the solution is at the socio-technical interface and requires social change, new social practices, social ownership or market uptake.

This topic should involve the effective contribution of SSH disciplines.