Enhancing Food Security by Institutionalizing Collaborative Food Alliances in Urban Areas

Narrowing the food supply-demand gaps between urban and rural areas within a regional space has today become a serious challenge due to the growing urban population. Resultantly, urban markets are increasingly being dominated by industrial food chains, despite their negative socio-environmental impa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2019-08, Vol.11 (15), p.4103
Main Authors: Sukhwani, Vibhas, Nurzaman, Arie, Kusumawardhani, Nadia Paramitha, AlHinai, Anwaar Mohammed, Hanyu, Liu, Shaw, Rajib
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Climate change
Collaboration
Consumers
Consumption
Developing countries
Food chains
Food industry
Food production
Food security
Food supply
LDCs
Literature reviews
Local government
Planning
Population
Rural areas
Stakeholders
Trends
Urban agriculture
Urban areas
Urban populations
Urbanization
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Summary:Narrowing the food supply-demand gaps between urban and rural areas within a regional space has today become a serious challenge due to the growing urban population. Resultantly, urban markets are increasingly being dominated by industrial food chains, despite their negative socio-environmental impacts. To address this issue, this paper discusses the need and significance of ‘Collaborative Food Alliances’ (CFAs), which promote the direct supply of food products from rural farmers to urban residents through improved producer–consumer relationships. Based on the literature survey, this study underlines that the current CFAs are confronted with several challenges including the small scale of functioning and limited financing. While the current research on CFAs is focused on theoretical place-based studies, this paper argues that institutionalization of CFAs at a large scale is highly important for enhancing food security in urban areas. It mainly deliberates on two key aspects: (a) The process of institutionalizing CFAs and (b) A feasible financing mechanism to support CFAs. This paper emphasizes that urban local governments have a central role to play in institutionalizing CFAs, either as a lead agency or as a facilitator. It concludes with specific suggestions on three key determinants of multi-stakeholder engagement, financial constraints and policy coordination at a regional level.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su11154103