Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

The third key aspect is fairness – that we’re producing food in such a way that it’sviable for farmers to stay on the land, and continue producing that food. Fairnessdoesn’t often come into the definition of food security, but if you want long-termfood security and a resilient system, then you actually need to be paying peopleto stay on the land. There’s so many farmers leaving the land at the moment,that’s a real issue, and should be seen as a really core element of food security[Academic researcher].Academic researchers we spoke to were especially concerned about the issues ofenvironmental sustainability, climate and resource resilience, and fairness. Oneexperienced academic offered this multi-dimensional conceptualisation:Food security is about sufficient, equitably accessible and sustainable food.Sustainability in this context means food produced in such a way that doesn’tundermine the ability of future generations to meet their own food needs. That’sreally important, and isn’t talked about enough, especially in relation to water andland issues, on the peri-urban fringe ...The third key aspect is fairness – that we’re producing food in such a way that it’sviable for farmers to stay on the land, and continue producing that food. Andwe’re not currently doing that [Academic researcher].Similar comments about conventional definitions of food security were made by othersin the community sector that might be regarded as part of the broader ‘fair foodmovement’. One commented that ‘food security sounds very official, and a lot of peopledon’t relate to that’. Another said ‘food security can put some people off – peopleunderstand growing your own, being healthy, being sustainable, and that’s the sort oflanguage we use’.One of the backyard gardeners and community food activists with whom we spokehighlighted the concepts of control and self-sufficiency in her understanding of foodsecurity:[Food security] means having control over my own food, knowing I’m going tohave continued access to it. Self-sufficiency is not quite my aim. I want to providefor as much of my own needs as I can, but I don’t think total self-sufficiency is arealistic objective. Our aim is not to have buy any fruit and vegetables during thesummer and autumn [Permaculturalist and backyard gardener].4.2.2 How is food security likely to be impacted by climate change?Amongst the small sample of commercial farmers and growers we spoke with, therewas generally a degree of scepticism about the empirical reality of anthropogenicclimate change. This appears to be reflected also in the current Victorian andQueensland administrations, with interviewees reporting a strong strain of climatescepticism and even denial amongst leading politicians. By contrast, urban agriculturalpractitioners and researchers with whom we spoke firmly believed that climate changewould affect food production in Victoria, especially in the northern food bowl region ofthe Murray Darling Basin. We were not able to speak with as many similar practitionersin Queensland.Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change 35