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Faced with a global threat to food security, it is perfectly possible that society will respond, not by a dystopian disintegration, but rather by reasserting co-operative traditions. This book, by a leading expert in urban agriculture, offers a genuine solution to today’s global food crisis. By contributing more to feeding themselves, cities can allow breathing space for the rural sector to convert to more organic sustainable approaches. Biel’s approach connects with current debates about agroecology and food sovereignty, asks key questions, and proposes lines of future research. He suggests that today’s food insecurity – manifested in a regime of wildly fluctuating prices – reflects not just temporary stresses in the existing mode of production, but more profoundly the troubled process of generating a new one. He argues that the solution cannot be implemented at a merely technical or political level: the force of change can only be driven by the kind of social movements which are now daring to challenge the existing unsustainable order.Drawing on both his academic research and teaching, and 15 years’ experience as a practicing urban farmer, Biel brings a unique interdisciplinary approach to this key global issue, creating a dialogue between the physical and social sciences
Urban agriculture is increasingly considered an important part of creating just and sustainable cities. Yet the benefits that many people attribute to urban agriculture-fresh food, green space, educational opportunities-can mask structural inequities, thereby making political transformation harder to achieve. Beyond the Kale argues that urban agricultural projects focused explicitly on dismantling oppressive systems have the greatest potential to achieve substantive social change. Through in-depth interviews and public forums with prominent urban agriculture activists and supporters-primarily people of color and women, whose strategies have often been underrespresented in the literature Kristin Reynolds and Nevin Cohen illustrate how urban farmers and gardeners not only grow food for their communities but also use their activities and spaces to disrupt the dynamics of power and privilege that perpetuate inequity. Beyond the Kale provides recommendations for these in philanthropy, government, nonprofit organizations, and academia to support such initiatives. Book jacket.
“Grounded in the urban politics of the 21st Century world-wide, this thoughtful volume hooks urban food – and especially its production – to social justice in a realistic and manageable way.” —Diana Lee-Smith, Mazingira Institute, Kenya “An excellent international overview of urban food democracy and governance, with impressive geographical reach.” —Andre Viljoen, University of Brighton, UK This edited collection explores urban food democracy as part of a broader policy-based approach to sustainable urban development. Conceptually, governance and social justice provide the analytical framework for a varied array of contributions which critically address issues including urban agriculture, smart cities, human health and wellbeing and urban biodiversity. Some chapters take the form of thematic, issue-based discussions, where others are constituted by empirical case studies. Contributing authors include both academic experts and practitioners who hail from a wide range of disciplines, professions and nations. All offer original research and robust consideration of urban food democracy in cities from across the Global North and South. Taken as a whole, this book makes a significant contribution to understanding the potential enabling role of good urban governance in developing formal urban food policy that is economically and socially responsive and in tune with forms of community-driven adaptation of space for the local production, distribution and consumption of nutritious food.
Today, 20 percent of the global food supply relies on urban agriculture: social-ecological systems shaped by both human and non-human interactions. This book shows how urban agroecologists measure flora and fauna that underpin the ecological dynamics of these systems, and how people manage and benefit from these systems. It explains how the sociopolitical landscape in which these systems are embedded can in turn shape the social, ecological, political, and economic dynamics within them. Synthesizing interdisciplinary approaches in urban agroecology in the natural and social sciences, the book explores methodologies and new directions in research that can be adopted by scholars and practitioners alike. With contributions from researchers utilizing both social and natural science approaches, Urban Agroecology describes the current social-environmental understandings of the science, the movement and the practices in urban agroecology. By investigating the role of agroecology in cities, the book calls for the creation of spaces for food to be sustainably grown in urban spaces: an Urban Agriculture (UA) movement. Essential reading for graduate students, practitioners, policy makers and researchers, this book charts the course for accelerating this movement.
Policy-related challenges to building community-based agriculture and food systems that are ecologically sustainable and socially just are also highlighted.
This book analyses the interplay of urban agriculture and food sovereignty through the innovative lens of the "critical urban food perspective". It focuses on the mobilisation of urban food producers as a powerful response to highly exclusionary dynamics in the agri-food system including insufficient food access and disastrous land dispossessions. This volume particularly aims to fill the gap in the current literature by engaging with food sovereignty discourses and movements in urban areas. Related activism of urban food producers in the Global South remains underrepresented in practice and in literature. Therefore, this book engages with the lived realities of an urban agriculture initiative in George, South Africa. Building on theoretical notions of the "right to the city" and "everyday forms of resistance", the book illuminates how deprived food producers expose inequalities and propose alternatives. The findings of in-depth empirical research reveal that dwellers perceive farming as a mean to overcome historical segregation, high food prices, and unhealthy nutrition. Hence, they breathe life into food sovereignty in practice and suggest further alliances beyond the city. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of alternative food politics, agrarian transformation, and food movements as well as rural-urban intersections.
Key features: Presents summaries of key points after each chapter and includes color graphs to visualize the big-picture concepts Demonstrates how urban rooftop farms (URFs) can contribute to city greening and climate change mitigation worldwide while providing fresh locally-sourced produce for growing urban populations Provides cutting-edge ideas from the the emerging field of food law and places international and comparative legal concepts into an accessible context for non-lawyers Examines major disputes surrounding food products that have been brought before the World Trade Organization (WTO) to illustrate how trade trends have pushed toward GMO proliferation Uses examples of food labeling, pollinator protection, pesticide permitting, invasive species control, and GMO regulatory policy in the US and the EU to illustrate various methods of bringing public law to the forefront in the struggle toward achieving food integrity The proliferation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in our increasingly globalized food system is trivializing the inherent risks to a sustainable world. Responding to the realities of climate change, urbanization, and a GMO-dominated industrialized food system, Gabriela Steier's seminal work addresses the interrelationship of these cutting-edge topics within a scholarly, legal context. In Advancing Food Integrity: GMO Regulation, Agroecology, and Urban Agriculture, Steier defines food integrity as the optimal measure of environmental sustainability and climate change resilience combined with food safety, security, and sovereignty for the farm-to-fork production and distribution of any food product. The book starts with a discussion of the food system and explores whether private law has sufficiently protected food or whether public law control is needed to safeguard food integrity. It proceeds to show how the proliferation of GMOs creates food insecurity by denying people’s access to food through food system centralization. Steier discusses how current industrial agricultural policy downplays the dangers of GMO monocultures to crop diversity and biodiversity, thereby weakening food production systems. Striving to promote agroecology by providing a fresh and compelling narrative of interdisciplinary questions, Steier explores how farming can be geared toward more sustainable and environmentally friendly practices worldwide in the future. This book belongs in the libraries of all those interested in food law, environmental law, agroecology, sustainable agriculture, and urban living practices.
Landscapes are frequently seen as fragments of natural habitat surrounded by a 'sea' of agriculture. But recent ecological theory shows that the nature of these fragments is not nearly as important for conservation as is the nature of the matrix of agriculture that surrounds them. Local extinctions from conservation fragments are inevitable and must be balanced by migrations if massive extinction is to be avoided. High migration rates only occur in what the authors refer to as 'high quality' matrices, which are created by alternative agroecological techniques, as opposed to the industrial monocultural model of agriculture. The authors argue that the only way to promote such high quality matrices is to work with rural social movements. Their ideas are at odds with the major trends of some of the large conservation organizations that emphasize targeted land purchases of protected areas. They argue that recent advances in ecological research make such a general approach anachronistic and call, rather, for solidarity with the small farmers around the world who are currently struggling to attain food sovereignty.Nature's Matrix proposes a radically new approach to the conservation of biodiversity based on recent advances in the science of ecology plus political realities, particularly in the world's tropical regions.
"This is a story of resistance against all odds, of Cuba's remarkable recovery from a food crisis brought on by the collapse of trade relations with the former socialist bloc and the tightening of the U.S. embargo. Unable to import either food or the farm chemicals and machines needed to grow it via conventional agriculture, Cuba turned inward toward self-reliance. Sustainable agriculture, organic farming, urban gardens, smaller farms, animal traction and biological pest control are part of the successful paradigm shift underway in the Cuban countryside. In this book Cuban authors offer details-for the first time in English-of these remarkable achievements, which may serve as guideposts toward healthier, more environmentally friendly and self-reliant farming in countries both North and South."--Publisher's description
Today there are over a billion hungry people on the planet, more than ever before in history. While the global food crisis dropped out of the news in 2008, it returned in 2011 (and is threatening us again in 2012) and remains a painful reality for the world's poor and underserved. Why, in a time of record harvests, are a record number of people going hungry? And why are a handful of corporations making record profits? In Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice, authors Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel with Annie Shattuck offer us the real story behind the global food crisis and document the growing trend of grassroots solutions to hunger spreading around the world. Food Rebellions! contains up to date information about the current political and economic realities of our food systems. Anchored in political economy and an historical perspective, it is a valuable academic resource for understanding the root causes of hunger, growing inequality, the industrial agri-foods complex, and political unrest. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Holt-Giménez and Patel give a detailed historical analysis of the events that led to the global food crisis and document the grassroots initiatives of social movements working to forge food sovereignty around the world. These social movements and this inspiring book compel readers to confront the crucial question: Who is hungry, why, and what can we do about it?