TRACK 16: FOOD

Planning for just and sustainable food systems; Food security; Food safety

Chairs:

• Emel Karakaya Ayalp, Izmir Democracy Univesity
• Alessandra Manganelli, HafenCity University Hamburg
• Ebru Seçkin, Yıldız Technical University (YTU), Istanbul
• Zeynep Ozcam, Izmir Institute of Technology

Food systems deeply interlace with contemporary crises. The incumbent food regime, uneven power relations in agri-food system, geopolitical conflicts, and both ongoing and emerging crises have exacerbated conditions of food insecurity, injustice and poverty- particularly impacting those already most vulnerable. The global food system holds responsibility in the climate emergency, contributes to the degradation of natural ecosystems, jeopardizes public health, pressures food sovereignty, affects the livelihoods of peasantry and agricultural workers, threatens animal welfare and perpetuates inequalities in food access. Alongside these structural challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic and its widespread impacts have underscored the urgency for cities as key actors to transform their food systems towards a just and sustainable future.

Food is a multifaceted issue within the sustainability challenges faced by urban areas. The problems created by the current food system in cities, along with the pressures of rapid urbanization, have compelled cities to seek solutions within their own borders as well as from external regions on which they depend for food supply. To this end, the urban and regional dimensions have become arenas where both food system struggles, promising alternatives along with grassroots practices have emerged. Sustainable Food Planning, as a counter-hegemonic practice, is embedded in the contradictions of contemporary society yet holds the potential to reveal and foster post-growth, sustainable and just alternatives: from agroecological urbanism to food planning based on (landed) commons rather than privatisation; city-region food system frameworks that rethink the relations between the cities and their foodsheds; public procurement models; and other initiatives treating food as a vehicle of recognition and restorative justice. These and other alternatives call for a deep engagement with structural and transformative change at the urban-rural interface.

At its core, planning for just and sustainable food systems involves understanding how food is a critical field or a powerful lever for building more sustainable and just city-regions, aligning with the mission of planning as an agent of transformation in addressing contemporary planetary crisis.

The track invites contributions that advance scholarly research, propose new methods and approaches, and inform practices related to issues such as:

• Innovative planning and design approaches enabling city-region food system and actions;
• Socially innovative multi-level governance, new bodies, grassroots movements and policy frameworks seeking transformative food security and justice;
• Interactions and synergies of food system action with other urban planning and policy domains (e.g. climate, health, land-use, transport);
• Contributions from the landscape field to sustainable food systems (e.g. Agroecological Corridors, Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes, Nature-based solutions, transformative experiments etc.)
• Alternative urbanism approaches related to food systems (i.e. biophilic urbanism; agroecological urbanism; plant-based urbanism etc.);
• Advances, methodologies and practices in planning and architecture pedagogies for sustainable food planning.

Keywords: Sustainable Food Planning; food system governance; city-region food system; rural-urban interface; heterodox approaches; socio-ecological justice