Abstract
For the first time in modern history, more than 50 percent of the world population is living in urban areas and this figure is expected to rise to 70 percent by 2050, particularly in developing countries, while, nowadays, in developed countries three quarters of people are already living in urban areas (UNPF 2007). Given this global scenario characterized – among the plethora of elements – also by a growing and diversified urban demand for agro-food (and non-food) commodities, it is in urban areas that ‘the most mouths to be fed are found’, and it is there – more than in any other place – where the contemporary food crises are becoming more tangible (Mendes 2007: 99; Morgan 2009). The link between urbanity and danger seems to have intensified under contemporary global food empires (van der Ploeg 2010): between 2007 and 2008, the harsh impact of the world food crisis (e.g. rising prices and shortages of staples) on the more economically vulnerable urban populations, has shown one of the multiple profiles of a modern “urban precarity” (Campbell and Laheij 2021), while currently we are experiencing the threat of jeopardized food supplies and subsequent food security instability – mostly concentrated in urban contexts – caused by the war in Ukraine (Berkhout et al. 2022; Lang and McKee 2022). Among the many elements, these dynamics are contributing to stimulate the promotion of an urgent turnabout in city planning, governance of city life and food system planning and policies (Pothukuchi and Kaufman 1999; Apparicio et al. 2007; Morgan 2015; Blay-Palmer et al. 2018). This new route takes into account the complexity and multifunctionality of food systems re-evaluating their indirect influence and direct effects on other sectoral spheres connected with the food security dimensions, such as public health, transport system and energy (McClintock 2010; Duvernoy et al. 2018). However, despite the importance of pioneering initiatives launched worldwide for the promotion of more inclusive and sustainable food policies, much remains to be done chiefly in terms of integrated responsabilisation and responsiveness of the “growing city” towards the effects of its demands on the rural conditions. Urban action still largely remains an outsider in assuming responsibility means to mitigate its impact not only on natural resources but also on rural labor. In other words, there is still a lack of urban strategies for food system planning able to look beyond the mere limits of the urban food security, and – given the urban pressure on the rural production systems – consider the contemporary agrarian questions no longer as rural issues but as rural-urban issues.