Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

9 ConclusionsThe case studies were designed to explore in greater depth and with practitioners andpolicy makers the key issues emerging from the literature review. The review drew onmaterial from around the world and we wanted to allow local practitioners to have theopportunity to both contextualise and criticise concepts and propositions developedelsewhere.All of those with whom we spoke were willing and able to engage in this criticalreflection, regardless of their particular appreciation of climate change or urban foodgrowing. The workshop in Melbourne offered an additional and valuable opportunity tohear debate among a group of practitioners as well as their individual perspectives.Overall, the interviews revealed that practitioners and local policy makers working inthis field are typically committed to urban agriculture and see significant potential for itsexpansion. They recognise the barriers such expansion faces but also seeopportunities for overcoming these barriers. In many respects this is to be expectedfrom those already working in a particular field, but many of the interviewees alsoexpressed criticism of some of the conceptualisations of food security, of urbanagriculture and of occasionally naive attempts at small scale commercial foodproduction in cities.To some extent the interviewees also reflected a broader divide apparent in widerdebates about food security, urban agriculture and urban resilience. To manyAustralians, food production is something that takes place only in rural areas and whilethere is growing recognition of the challenges faced by many small farmers inparticular, there is an underlying optimism in the capacity of market mechanisms andtechnological developments to ensure that Australia remains a producer of foodsurpluses and indeed derives much of its national wealth from the export of food. Fromthis perspective, urban agriculture is something of novelty and although long standingtraditions of self-provisioning through suburban backyard gardening remain,commercial and collective provision in cities is seen as a minority pastime, similar tohobby farming in peri-urban areas. However, a growing body of opinion recognises anumber of significant and substantial threats to food security in the cities of thedeveloped world, including climate change, the consequences of peak oil and globaleconomic crises. From this perspective cities must develop a range of new approachesto planning for their futures which seek to build resilience. The re-localisation of foodsystems through support for urban agriculture is one measure in building greater urbanresilience, but must be pursued in tandem with many others including the productiveuse of urban waste, the development of decentralised energy production anddistribution systems and the construction of more compact and flexible settlementpatterns.In illustrating these contrasting and sometimes conflicting views and opinions, the casestudies have provided valuable insights on the debates that currently exist aroundurban agriculture and the policy debates that must continue if Australian cities are tobecome more resilient in the face of climate change.Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change 147