Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

esearch scientist and chair of the Resilience Alliance, Brian Lake, who definesresilience in terms of ‘the capacity of a system to undergo change and still retain itsbasic function and structure’. In this school of thought, a resilient system is seen toinclude features such as:ecological, social and economic diversity;tight feedback loops;working with natural cycles;‘well-developed social networks and leadership’, and high levels of trust;an emphasis on ‘learning, experimentation, locally-developed rules andembracing change’;‘institutions that include redundancy in their governance structures and a mix ofcommon and private property with overlapping access rights’.Incorporating this thinking into conceptualising a resilient food system as one that iscapable of adapting to a changing climate whilst achieving future food security, oneresearcher described such a system as one that is:Flexible, adaptable, and can respond to whatever happens in the future in termsof a changing climate, extreme weather events, and the price of oil going throughthe roof. We can make predictions about what’s going to happen and when, butwe don’t know, and in what combinations. So there are some things that justseem fairly sensible to do, because a number of these things might happen.[Doing those things] means that we’re more likely to be able to get fresh,reasonably affordable food to people, when they need it.So resilience is about planning and preparedness for a number of differentscenarios that may happen in the future, as well as the resilience in ensuring thata farmer is able to keep farming the land. There’s no point protecting land andwater sources, if we’re not paying farmers enough to keep farming on the land –there has to be fairness for farmers.It’s not helpful to think about the climate change issue separately from all theother emerging issues. We need to plan for a system that’s more resilient to all ofthem. And if you think about it that way, then there’s real synergies between thesteps that need to be taken to address climate change, and the steps that needto be taken to cope with oil price volatility, and the steps that need to be taken toensure fairness for farmers [Academic researcher].VEIL’s Future Scenarios work, discussed above, clearly fits into this systems approachof ‘planning and preparedness’ for an uncertain future. In Melbourne’s urban agricultureand community food movement, there is a strong current of opinion that is informed bythe view that the current globalised food system, because of its heavy dependence onfossil fuel inputs, and its high ecological footprint, is fundamentally non-resilient andvulnerable to some sort of systemic breakdown or even collapse. This is evident instatements such as the following:The industrialised food system is the main cause [of current and future foodinsecurity]. It’s the most destructive force on the planet. It is a major driver ofclimate change, generating up to 33% of all GHG emissions, and as much asUrban food security, urban resilience and climate change 43