Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

people and the origins of their food as a metabolic rift, a disconnection and vulnerabilitythat was also highlighted during this project’s fieldwork in Melbourne and the GoldCoast.The recent report from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and ClimateChange (Beddington et al., 2011) chaired by Professor Sir John Beddington describesvividly the current state of global food security and the converging threats from climatechange, population growth and the continued unsustainable use of natural resourcesand concludes,‘Business as usual in our globally interconnected food system will not bring usfood security and environmental sustainability’ (p. 3)Instead the Commission recommends urgent and far reaching change,‘To reduce the effect of climate change on food supplies, livelihoods andeconomies, we must greatly increase adaptive capacity in agriculture...‘(p. 4)However, although recognising that the threats posed by climate change to foodsupplies ‘are likely to be spatially variable’ (p. 4), there is no reference at all to theurban dimensions of the problem, either in the growing concentration of the poor inurban settings or in the potential for some forms of agriculture to be based within citiesor their peri-urban fringes.Similarly, the Expert Working Group, commissioned by PMSEIC to investigate andreport on Australian food security devoted little time to the urban dimension of theproblem, although they did develop and articulate a more nuanced analysis of theproblem than earlier and simpler conceptions. In his foreword to their 2010 report onAustralian food security in a changing world (PMSEIC, 2010:v), the chair of the expertworking group, Professor Peter Langridge noted that:In Australia, we have had an abundance of food. We can produce more food thanwe need and we have the resources to import food if necessary. However, wehave faced crises for specific foods, such as the banana shortage after TropicalCyclone Larry in 2006. Further, our food transport, distribution and storagesystems are vulnerable to disruption...Perhaps Australia’s most seriousfood security issue relates to the ways in which we consume and use food.(emphasis added)Thus, while the report acknowledges the significant vulnerability of Australianagriculture to climate change and variability, to increasing land degradation and toincreasing reliance on imported fertilisers, it says little about the urban dimension tothese problems. There is however some recognition of the importance of betterengaging a broader spectrum of the community in building their appreciation of food,nutrition and supply chains. The logic of this approach is that by building greaterappreciation of the importance of food and especially of good quality and nutritiousfood, people’s demand will drive innovation in the food production and processingsectors in a positive manner:Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change 16