City Region Food Systems: Building Resilience to COVID-19 and Other Shocks

Alison Blay-Palmer, Guido Santini, Jess Halliday, Roman Malec, Joy Carey, Léo Keller, Jia Ni, Makiko Taguchi and René van Veenhuizen
Additional contact information
Alison Blay-Palmer: Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5, Canada
Guido Santini: Plant Production and Protection Division (NSP), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy
Jess Halliday: RUAF/Hivos, Grote Marktstraat 47a, 2511 BH The Hague, The Netherlands
Roman Malec: Office of Emergencies and Resilience (OER), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy
Joy Carey: RUAF/Hivos, Grote Marktstraat 47a, 2511 BH The Hague, The Netherlands
Léo Keller: Plant Production and Protection Division (NSP), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy
Jia Ni: Plant Production and Protection Division (NSP), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy
Makiko Taguchi: Plant Production and Protection Division (NSP), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy
René van Veenhuizen: RUAF/Hivos, Grote Marktstraat 47a, 2511 BH The Hague, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-19

Abstract: Using examples from the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper reviews the contribution a City Region Food Systems (CRFS) approach makes to regional sustainability and resilience for existing and future shocks including climate change. We include both explicit interventions under United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO-RUAF) led initiatives, as well as ad hoc efforts that engage with elements of the CRFS approach. To provide context, we begin with a literature review of the CRFS approach followed by an overview of the global food crisis, where we outline many of the challenges inherent to the industrial capital driven food system. Next, we elaborate three key entry points for the CRFS approach—multistakeholder engagement across urban rural spaces; the infrastructure needed to support more robust CRFS; system centered planning, and, the role of policy in enabling (or thwarting) food system sustainability. The pandemic raises questions and provides insights about how to foster more resilient food systems, and provides lessons for the future for the City Region Food System approach in the context of others shocks including climate change.

Keywords: resilience; sustainable food system; COVID-19; climate change; policy; infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:3:p:1325-:d:488006

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