Reclaiming Food Insecurity in European Urban Policies
Lessons From Public and Community‐Based Initiatives
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22018535 |
|---|---|
| Authors | María José La Rota-Aguilera (0000-0002-1360-516X, Universitat de Barcelona), A Moragues-Faus (0000-0001-7926-6394, Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Publication date | 2025-08-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Planning (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2183-7635 • E-ISSN: 2183-7635 |
| Publisher | Cogitatio (PUBLISHER • PT) |
| DOI | 10.17645/up.9557 |
| OpenAlex | W4413795935 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 70 |
Cities are at the forefront of socio‐ecological challenges, including food insecurity, rising inequalities, and environmental degradation. Despite a decade of progress in urban food policies, food insecurity remains a low priority in European cities, even as community and public responses increase, revealing persistent challenges in integrating different sectors in food policy‐making. Limited evidence and conceptualisations further hinder the development of effective interventions that combine food availability and accessibility with sustainability and empowerment goals. This study proposes an analytical framework grounded on the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition’s six‐dimensional approach (Availability, Access, Utilisation, Stability, Agency, and Sustainability) to address these gaps. Applying this framework to the case of Barcelona, the study maps local food insecurity responses and develops a new typology of initiatives, which range from targeted access programs to more comprehensive efforts that incorporate multiple dimensions such as agency and sustainability. The analysis highlights significant tensions within and between initiatives, particularly at the intersection of sustainability, agency, and access. Tensions reflect broader structural challenges in European urban food policies, where weak sectoral integration across economic, environmental, and justice areas limits effective responses to food insecurity. More comprehensive initiatives offer bottom‐up insights into navigating these tensions and trade‐offs. We argue that embracing all six food security dimensions can support urban policies to better address food insecurity by redesigning individual initiatives and leveraging their diversity and synergies from a place‐based perspective. A more critical, collaborative, multidimensional, and territorial approach that explicitly connects urban food policies with poverty reduction is essential for building inclusive, resilient, and just urban food systems
Economic growth · Economics · Environmental planning · Food insecurity · Food security · Geography · Political science · Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability · Organic Food and Agriculture · Urban Agriculture and Sustainability
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023
The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change
The problem with growing corporate concentration and power in the global food system
A Critical Examination of Community-Based Responses to Household Food Insecurity in Canada
Interventions to address household food insecurity in high-income countries
UN Food Systems Summit 2021
Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions
Food in the Anthropocene
Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries
Addressing food security and nutrition by means of a territorial approach
Equity and expertise in the UN Food Systems Summit
Assessing the sustainability of contrasting land use scenarios through the Socioecological Integrated Analysis (SIA) of the metropolitan green infrastructure in Barcelona
Spatial inequality and its relationship with local food environments
The contribution of Urban Food Policies toward food security in developing and developed countries
Food Insecurity and Hunger in Rich Countries—It Is Time for Action against Inequality
Understanding Impacts of SNAP Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Program at Farmers’ Markets
Beyond markets
Territorialising knowledge-policy interfaces
Exploring European food system vulnerabilities
Food security and global environmental change
Bringing together urban systems and food systems theory and research is overdue
Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies
Placing the food system on the urban agenda
Food security and environmental degradation
Urban food policies in German city regions
The co-production of urban food policies
Viewpoint
Urban food policies for a sustainable and just future
Enhancing food security of low-income consumers
Can low-income households afford a healthy diet? Insufficient income as a driver of food insecurity in Europe
Food policy coherence in local government
Joined–up Food Policy? The Trials of Governance, Public Policy and the Food System
Relationalities and convergences in food security narratives
New power relations served here
Food insecurity in Europe
Evolving foodscapes
City profile
The rise of multi-stakeholderism, the power of ultra-processed food corporations, and the implications for global food governance
A food politics of the possible? Growing sustainable food systems through networks of knowledge
The geographies of food banks in the meantime
Towards a critical governance framework
Building Diverse, Distributive, and Territorialized Agrifood Economies to Deliver Sustainability and Food Security
Balancing the Scales
Reframing the foodscape
Food sovereignty
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |