Peri-urban food production - increasing urban resilience and linking urban and rural regions

• In the Anthropocene era most people globally live in cities and urban areas which rises vast challenges for handling resources and navigating towards sustainable urban development. The sustainable city is a frequently used vision but in the discussion on sustainable systems for housing, energy, waste, communication and security etc., the food security issue is most often absent. The food system in the industrial world is totally integrated in a global food system directly linked to the globalized economic market. The efficient functioning of a such system assumes reliable access to land, natural resources, energy, efficient and undisturbed transportation along routes in land, water, cyber space and absence of political and military conflicts. To the uncertainty of all those factors the environmental uncertainty, e.g. climate warming, must be added, and thus making food security endangered. The strong current interest in urban agriculture in many cities is partly a response to this situation although the food produced here cannot satisfy the need of the urban population. In contrast, the peri-urban regions have a large potential for food production but the land here is under severe pressure for a number of different and contradicting uses. Such pressures include 1) Land for built up activities and infrastructure; 2) Natural and cultural values and protected areas; 3) Recreation (golf courses, horse activities etc); 4) Food production. The challenge for urban planning of resilient livelihoods is to find a balance between the four competing dimensions since they all include needs for human wellbeing. The aim of this paper is to address the peri-urban land use changes in relation to food production, and to discuss the potential of increasing resilience for urban-rural regions by enhancing food production as part of multifunctional land use in those areas. A case study addressing this aim is performed in peri-urban Gothenburg, Sweden. This is a coastal city with considerable cultural diversity, segregation problems and challenges for social sustainability. Methods applied are interviews of different groups of stakeholders including planners and mapping of historical, statistical, land use data and land use plans. Among the preliminary findings are: unique situation in Gothenburg with a combination of considerable peri-urban land owned by the municipality and strong engagement and political will among officials and local residents to preserve the peri-urban agricultural land and to increase the local food production; Food production activities can produce multiple values available for citizens in the urban and peri-urban regions; Multifunctionality in protected areas that are part of the agricultural landscape; Local food production creating new job opportunities; Food production activities as arena for knowledge sharing and cultural integration; Combining the urban and peri-urban food production and including adjoining rural municipalities can revitalize the region; Food production activities increasing social and environmental sustainability have a potential for increasing resilience of urban-rural regions.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

peri-urban food production

urban food security

urban-rural resilience

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