Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

mapping the location of sources of healthy and unhealthy food in cities, as wellas the accessibility of these locations, including walking distances and publictransport proximity.Mapping of this sort would capture important quantitative data that could inform futurepolicy and practical actions, and decisions about resource allocations, land use,planning frameworks and infrastructure investments.Mapping could usefully be accompanied by qualitative ethnographic research todescribe and share the extensive food-growing knowledge and techniques thatcurrently exist among those involved in food production, especially among those fromimmigrant communities. This is a matter of some urgency, as many of the peopleconcerned are well advanced in age and their knowledge could be lost to futuregenerations.Another important aspect of this mapping would be to undertake food systemsassessments, both for individual local government areas, and for wider metropolitanareas. The most effective food systems assessment usually entails some form ofparticipatory action research through which:Communities examine the connections between production, distribution,consumption and waste disposal and measure their impacts on the environment,human health and livelihoods through a set of indicators over time.Understanding the trends and relationships between elements within the foodsystem, ultimately assists community members and policy makers in pinpointingareas of concern and working for appropriate and equitable reforms. (San DiegoFood Systems Assessment)VicHealth is currently supporting the establishment of Local Food Policy Coalitions inseveral local government areas. Among other things these will conduct participatoryfood systems assessments in order to create profiles of their local food system.Importantly, these assessments will begin to create, for the first time, a baseline of dataagainst which future interventions and policy changes around the local food systemscan be monitored and evaluated. This is a significant advance and the challenge will beto extend these assessments across all Melbourne urban and peri-urban councils; andthen to scale them up so that Melbourne as a major urban conurbation has its own foodsystem assessment. This has already been carried out in several major cities in NorthAmerica, including Vancouver, Oakland, San Francisco, Detroit and San Diego.Part of the mapping work carried out above, focussing on the yields achieved indifferent conditions and with different growing methods would answer importantquestions about the potential contribution of urban agriculture to increasing urban foodsecurity. However, in order to fully understand that potential, the amount of greenspace and other surfaces available for food growing would need to be comprehensivelymapped and classified according to soil type, crop suitability, water access,infrastructure requirements, and any other significant constraints. Eventually this couldlead to the development of an ‘urban agriculture’ planning overlay, with prime potentialfood growing sites clearly identified, within local planning schemes.Other emerging trends in urban food production, such as green roofs and verticalgardening, also merit study in order to understand their potential contribution. An edibleUrban food security, urban resilience and climate change 67