Geography Commons^™

No. 02: Approaching Sustainable Urban Development In China Through A Food System Planning Lens, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott

Hungry Cities Partnership

After more than two decades of rapid urbanization, Chinese cities now face severe sustainability chal- lenges in terms of balancing economic viability, social justice, and environmental protection goals. While various types of planning have long been adopted to cope with these challenges, food as a centrepiece of daily life and of social and economic activity in cities has rarely been considered as a focus of urban planning in China, despite a lot of recent attention to food waste and food safety concerns. China’s food policy is largely fragmented in terms of its multiple regulatory agencies and diverse policy goals. Amid …

No. 01: Hungry Cities Of The Global South, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

The recent inclusion of an urban Sustainable Development Goal in the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda represents an important acknowledgement of the reality of global urbanization and the many social, economic, infrastructural and political challenges posed by the human transition to a predominantly urban world. However, while the SDG provides goals for housing, transportation, land use, cultural heritage and disaster risk prevention, food is not mentioned at all. This discussion paper aims to correct this unfortunate omission by reviewing the current evidence on the challenges of feeding rapidly-growing cities in the Global South. The paper first documents the magnitude of the …

No. 02: The Urban Food System Of Maputo, Mozambique, Abel Chikanda, Inês Raimundo

Hungry Cities Partnership

The city of Maputo, with a population of around 1.3 million, has been at the forefront of urbanization in Mozambique. While the Southern African country has posted impressive macro-economic growth rates in the last two decades, there has been only limited formal sector employment generation. Most of its working population is absorbed in informal employment and self-employment. The informal food economy is easily the most important source of food in Maputo. Almost all households regularly obtain food from informal sellers; over 90% at least once a week and many on a daily basis. For many households, daily purchasing is necessitated …

The Return Of Food: Poverty And Urban Food Security In Zimbabwe After The Crisis, Godfrey Tawodzera, Liam Riley, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

The nadir of Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis in 2008 coincided with the implementation of a baseline household food security survey in Harare by AFSUN. This survey found that households in lowincome urban areas in Zimbabwe’s capital were far worse off in terms of all the food insecurity and poverty indicators than households in the other 10 Southern African cities surveyed by AFSUN. The central question addressed in this report is whether food security in Zimbabwe’s urban centres has improved. AFSUN conducted a follow-up survey in 2012 that allows for direct longitudinal comparisons of continuity and change. The status of …

Migration And Food Security: Zimbabwean Migrants In Urban South Africa, Godfrey Tawodzera, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report examines the food security status of Zimbabwean migrant households in the poorer areas of two major South African cities, Johannesburg and Cape Town. The vast majority were food insecure in terms of the amount of food to which they had access and the quality and diversity of their diet. What seems clear is that Zimbabwean migrants are significantly more food insecure than other low-income households. The primary reason for this appears to lie in pressures that include remittances of cash and goods back to family in Zimbabwe. The small literature on the impact of migrant remittances on food …

No. 01: The Urban Food System Of Nanjing, China, Zhenzhong Si, Jonathan Crush, Steffanie Scott, Taiyang Zhong

Hungry Cities Partnership

With a population of 8.2 million people, Nanjing is the 14th largest city in China. China became a predominantly urban nation in 2011, when its urban population surpassed its rural population for the first time. The declining farming population and area of farmland along with the increased food consumption of urban residents have had significant implications for China’s food security, including in cities such as Nanjing. As with many other Chinese cities, Nanjing’s informal economy has become an important source of income for the poor, including migrant workers. Since the beginning of economic reform in 1978, street vendors have become …

Food Remittances: Migration And Food Security In Africa, Jonathan Crush, Mary Caesar

Hungry Cities Partnership

By drawing attention to the importance of food remittances for urban and rural food security and identifying the current knowledge gaps, this report contributes to the study of the relationship between migration and food security and creates a platform for the design of a new research agenda. Across Africa, there is considerable evidence of a massive informal trade in food, including staples, fresh and processed products. While most cross-border trade in foodstuffs is a result of commercial transactions by small-scale traders who buy in one country and sell in another, an unknown proportion is actually food remittances on their way …

The Return Of Food: Poverty And Urban Food Security In Zimbabwe After The Crisis, Godfrey Tawodzera, Liam Riley, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

The nadir of Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis in 2008 coincided with the implementation of a baseline household food security survey in Harare by AFSUN. This survey found that households in lowincome urban areas in Zimbabwe’s capital were far worse off in terms of all the food insecurity and poverty indicators than households in the other 10 Southern African cities surveyed by AFSUN. The central question addressed in this report is whether food security in Zimbabwe’s urban centres has improved. AFSUN conducted a follow-up survey in 2012 that allows for direct longitudinal comparisons of continuity and change. The status of …

Understanding Fruit And Vegetable Consumption: A Qualitative Investigation In The Mitchells Plain Sub-District Of Cape Town, Catherine Pereira, Milla Mclachlan, Jane Battersby

Hungry Cities Partnership

Objectives: Many South Africans do not consume enough fruit and vegetables. However, people are generally aware of the benefits of adequate consumption. To understand this gap between knowledge and practice, this study investigated underlying factors influencing consumption through a qualitative, cross-sectional, descriptive case study conducted in Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town.

Methods: Four focus groups to gain broad understanding and 15 interviews with strategically selected individuals influential in food preparation, distribution or consumption, to gain in-depth understanding of specific factors influencing fruit and vegetable consumption were conducted.

Results: The study identified a number of drivers of fruit and vegetable consumption patterns. …

The State Of Poverty And Food Insecurity In Maseru, Lesotho, Resetselemang Leduka, Jonathan Crush, Bruce Frayne, Cameron Mccordic, Thope Matobo, Ts’Episo Makoa, Matseliso Mphale, Mmantai Phaila, Moipone Letsie

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report on food insecurity in urban Lesotho is the latest in a series on Southern African cities issued by AFSUN. Like the previous reports, it focuses on one city (Maseru) and on poor neighbourhoods and households in that city. More than 60% of poor households surveyed in Maseru were severely food insecure. While food price increases worsen food insecurity for poor households, it is poverty that weakens the resilience of society to absorb these increases. This report argues that Maseru residents face specific and interrelated challenges with respect to food and nutrition insecurity. These are poverty; limited local livelihood …

The Transformation Of Trust In China’S Alternative Food Networks: Disruption, Reconstruction, And Development, Raymond Yu Wang, Zhenzhong Si, Cho Nam Ng, Steffanie Scott

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food safety issues in China have received much scholarly attention, yet few studies systematically examined this matter through the lens of trust. More importantly, little is known about the transformation of different types of trust in the dynamic process of food production, provision, and consumption. We consider trust as an evolving interdependent relationship between different actors. We used the Beijing County Fair, a prominent ecological farmers’ market in China, as an example to examine the transformation of trust in China’s alternative food networks. We argue that although there has been a disruption of institutional trust among the general public since …

The State Of Poverty And Food Insecurity In Maseru, Lesotho, Resetselemang Leduka, Jonathan Crush, Bruce Frayne, Cameron Mccordic, Thope Matobo, Ts’Episo Makoa, Matseliso Mphale, Mmantai Phaila, Moipone Letsie

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report on food insecurity in urban Lesotho is the latest in a series on Southern African cities issued by AFSUN. Like the previous reports, it focuses on one city (Maseru) and on poor neighbourhoods and households in that city. More than 60% of poor households surveyed in Maseru were severely food insecure. While food price increases worsen food insecurity for poor households, it is poverty that weakens the resilience of society to absorb these increases. This report argues that Maseru residents face specific and interrelated challenges with respect to food and nutrition insecurity. These are poverty; limited local livelihood …

Entrepreneurship And Inclusive Growth In South Africa, Zimbabwe And Mozambique, Jonathan Crush, Caroline Skinner, Abel Chikanda

Hungry Cities Partnership

While increasing attention is being paid to the drivers and forms of entrepreneurship in informal economies, much less of this policy and research focus is directed at understanding the links between mobility and informality. This report examines the current state of knowledge about this relationship with particular reference to three countries (Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe) and four cities (Cape Town, Harare, Johannesburg and Maputo), identifying major themes, knowledge gaps, research questions and policy implications. In many African cities, informal enterprises are operated by internal and international migrants. The extent and nature of mobile entrepreneurship and the opportunities and challenges …

The State Of Food Insecurity In Maputo, Mozambique, Inês Raimundo, Jonathan Crush, Wade Pendleton

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food insecurity is a fact of life for the vast majority of households across Maputo’s poverty belt. The Maputo urban food security survey done by AFSUN as part of its baseline survey of 11 Southern African cities found that households exist in a constant state of food insecurity manifested in a lack of access to sufficient affordable food, poor dietary quality and undernutrition. Income is meagre and only those households with access to wage income have any chance of holding food insecurity at bay. With a vibrant informal food economy, Maputo’s poor are surrounded by fresh and processed food. Food …