Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

In many respects these contrasting perspectives reflect fundamental value positionsthat are not especially amenable to empirical verification or refutation. Those whobelieve that Borlaug’s Green Revolution and global market mechanisms have producedone of the world’s greatest success stories (Perkins, 1997) are unlikely to becomeadvocates of local food systems, while committed locavores are likely to remainunconvinced by the economic case for global specialisation and transportation or forthe use of crops genetically modified to cope with more heat or less water.Of course the positions described above represent simplified versions of positions atopposite ends of a spectrum, and in between a wide range of complex and morenuanced positions exist. Nevertheless, as Jonathon Porritt (then Chair of the UKgovernment’s Sustainable Development Commission) observed in his 2009 Campdenlecture:…one might legitimately despair at the quality of the current debate on foodsecurity [where] ‘free market absolutists’ battle it out with ‘self-sufficiencyevangelists’ (Porritt, 2009:7).Based on this, it is possible to conclude provisionally that urban agriculture in all itsforms can play a more prominent role in enhancing urban food security and in buildinggreater urban resilience. However, the more important question is one of scale anddegree: how much more of a prominent role can it play? Can it make a substantialcontribution and how might this be calibrated and measured?In our review we looked for research that attempts to quantify the current extent ofurban agriculture in Australian cities and which tries to quantify its future potential. Wedid not find any substantial work of this nature, although there are some moreimpressionistic and localised studies. It should be noted that while we recommend thatmore systematic empirical work of this nature be commissioned in the future, it wasbeyond our remit to conduct any primary research of this type.To maximise its contribution and impact, urban agriculture should be integrated intobroader food systems and recognised in more comprehensive programs ofmetropolitan planning for greater resilience and sustainability. But food policy is rarelyjoined up with other policy fields and if it is to become more influential it must becomemore integrated with other elements of urban policy, including those designed to tackleurban poverty and to promote greater social cohesion and economic integration. Whilethe urban poor clearly experience all too intensely the effects of food insecurity andhave limited means to overcome these effects, food insecurity sometimes affects allurban residents. Relatively wealthy urban residents may be better able than theirpoorer neighbours to afford healthy and nutritious food and to stockpile in anticipationof emergencies, but they will nevertheless be similarly affected by major disruptions tourban food supplies.Climate change is likely to lead to more extreme weather events, which are the mainsource of these major disruptions to urban food supplies. Moreover, the viability andproductivity of existing food production systems are also likely to be seriouslycompromised by local manifestations of climate change. Urban agriculture has thepotential, therefore, to contribute to the adaptations that all cities must engage in if theyUrban food security, urban resilience and climate change 61