Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

animals allowed previously nomadic peoples to ‘put down roots’ and build settlements(Bartling, 2012). In ideal typical terms, we might contrast urban and rural systems: inrural areas (or perhaps rural systems in developing countries) food production is drivenprimarily by self-sufficiency, with systems of exchange and distribution developing onlywhen the basic needs of the household have been met and surpluses exist. In urbanareas (especially in developed countries) food production is often a commercialoperation with most people consuming food produced mostly by others. Furthermore,significant amounts of food production takes place outside or beyond the urban areas,and indeed a significant proportion of food consumed by urban residents is now grownat great distance from where it is processed and consumed.However, the production of food within cities also has a long history, and there aresigns that it is growing in significance. Yet to date there has been little research,especially in the Australian context, into the extent of domestic and urban food basedproduction (see for example Larder, Lyons and Woolcock, forthcoming). Its significancelies not just in its contribution to the supply of nutrition, but also in its wider socialimpacts: enabling food growers to re-connect with ‘nature’, re-establishing seasonalsensibilities and connections between food and place, and providing new opportunitiesfor social interaction and community development. Some argue it also allows new (or infact older but often forgotten) forms of social enterprise to be showcased and practised.The growing significance of food and food security can be seen in a number ofcontemporary policy developments, including the Senate Enquiry into Food Security in2010, the PMSEIC report on Australia and Food Security in a Changing World (2010)and the National Food Plan, currently being prepared by the Australian Department ofAgriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Each of these developments signifies the politicalimportance of the agricultural sector in the national accounts, a growing emphasis onnew forms of food production, processing and supply in state plans and the emergenceof urban agriculture as a matter of local policy concern. Furthermore, global threatssuch as peak oil, climate change and economic and financial crises also have clearconnections with food security at both the global and the local scales.In mid-2011 the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF)issued a call under its Synthesis and Integrative Research Program for proposals in amodular project looking at ensuring secure food supplies for Australia under climatechange. This call focussed mainly on food supplied by large scale agriculturalproduction in rural areas and its international trade, but it did invite proposals onalternative projects consistent with this theme.A team of researchers from Griffith University, the University of Queensland andMacquarie University submitted an alternative proposal which focussed on urban foodsecurity and the role of urban agriculture in the face of climate change. Following someminor amendments, this was approved and this review constitutes an initial output ofthe project.The project takes the form primarily of a critical review of published material related tothe topic, but this will be supplemented by data collected in face-to-face interviews andgroup discussions in two locations, the city of the Gold Coast in Queensland and partsof Melbourne, Victoria. This review is structured around seven key questions related tourban food security, urban resilience and climate change. It will be supplemented bysubsequent reports of the fieldwork undertaken in Melbourne and the Gold Coast andby a synthesis report to be published by NCCARF later in 2012.Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change 74