City region food systems and food waste management

CFS 43 – 20 October 2016

Food losses and waste in the context of metropolitan food and nutrition security

STRUCTURE

• Key trends and challenges

• FAO work on City Region Food Systems (CRFS)

• Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction (SAVE FOOD)

• Joint publication: FAO – RUAF – GIZ:

– City Region Food Systems and Food Waste Management: Linking Urban and Rural Areasfor Sustainable and Resilient Development

Background

Policy context

• UN Decade of Action on Nutrition; Second International Conference onNutrition (ICN2)

• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Goals 11 and 12.3

• Habitat III

• Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP)

• Food and nutrition security increasingly becomes also an urban challenge

• Urban growth is coupled to demand for natural resources that provide vital

food and ecosystem services

• Urban and rural development have become increasingly linked

• There is a need for more integrated and sustainable territorial development

Growth rates of urban agglomerations by size class: 2014 – 2030

Note: Designations employed and the presentation of material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

City region food systems: Bridging the rural-urban divide for sustainability and inclusiveness

Regional landscape (urban centre and its surrounding peri-urban areas and rural hinterland) in which exists a flow of people, goods and ecosystem services

Systemic approach to food production, processing, marketing, consumption, waste management, natural resources management

FAO Food for the Cities Programme:

Systematize and operationalize the concept of City Region Food Systems

Develop methods and tools to conduct comprehensive and participatory CRFS assessment and validate it in pilot city regions

Strengthen capacity of local stakeholders within a local food system to improve food and nutrition security of urban dwellers

Reinforce urban-rural linkages for more inclusive, efficient and resilient food system

city region food systems approach

Coordination and collaboration with public and private sector, academia, civil society

e.g. IFAD, WFP, UNIDO, UNEP, IFPRI, WRI, OECD, EU, Global FoodBanking Network

FAO multi-disciplinary working group (HQ & Sub/Regional/National/Liaison Offices)

Beneficiaries: the global agricultural and food system stakeholders

Primary production Post-harvest handling Processing Distribution Sales Consumption

By–products and waste management optimization

Global Initiative on food loss and waste reduction(SAVE FOOD)

Assessment

methodologies

causes

impacts

Technical

assistance

policies

programmes

investments

Capacity

development Global

Community of

Practice (CoP)

City Region Food Systemsand Food Waste Management:

Linking Urban and Rural Areasfor Sustainable and Resilient Development

Joint publication

Least preferred

Most preferred

Recovery of safe and nutritious food forhuman consumption is to receive, withor without payment, food (processed,semi-processed or raw) which wouldotherwise be discarded or wasted fromthe agricultural, livestock, forestry andfisheries supply chains of the foodsystem.

Redistribution of safe and nutritiousfood for human consumption is to storeor process and then distribute thereceived food pursuant to appropriatesafety, quality and regulatoryframeworks directly or throughintermediaries, and with or withoutpayment, to those having access to it forfood intake. (FAO, 2015)

Safe and nutritious food available and accessible for direct human

nutrition

Food loss and waste

prevention and reduction at source

Recovery and redistribution of safe and nutritious

food for human consumption

Feed

Context dependent: Compost or

energy recovery, other industrial

uses

Disposal

Food-use-not-loss-or–waste hierarchy, adapted from CFS 41 by Bucatariu, C., 2015

Food loss and waste in city region food systems

Case studies in the joint FAO – RUAF - GIZ report:

Île-de-France Region, France: Recovery and Redistribution of Safe and Nutritious Food through Social Supermarkets

Medellín, Colombia: Food Redistribution and Value Addition from Rural to Urban Areas

York, Canada: The Ontario Food Collaborative – A City Region Initiative For Preventingand Reducing Food Waste

Curitiba, Brazil: Reduction and Recycling of Urban Waste in Support of Adequate Urban Diets and Prevention of On-farm Food Waste

Linköping, Sweden: Linking Rural and Urban Areas through Agricultural and Urban Waste Recycling

Balangoda, Sri Lanka: Composting Urban Organic Waste into Agricultural Inputs

• System perspective: Preventing and reducing FLW between the farm-gate and the last point of sale in urban areas

• Multi-stakeholder process: Local stakeholders were involved early on and took part in the

decision-making process at a very early stage, helping to ensure sustainability and ownership.

Key findings

• FLW as key element to operationalize rural-urban linkages

• Policy support is often a prerequisite

– Public awareness and education campaigns on environmental responsibility were crucial in engaging citizens in waste management actions.

– Integrate FLW concerns and solutions into agricultural, food, health, socio-economic development and other relevant policies that link urban to rural areas.

measure improvement and trends over time and set targets

monitor progress towards local, national, and global goals, e.g. SDG2, SDG12.3 and SDG 12.5

ensure barriers are broken: economic and social access to safe andnutritious food, markets, capacity development along the chain and atconsumer level

food can be prevented to become waste and be efficiently utilized as aresource in the food supply chain

• useful to reposition urban areas as part of a wider functional territory

• offers concrete entry points for implementing several SDGs aspects of the New Urban Agenda (NUA)

• Need to recognize interdependence between SDG 2 and 11(and SDG 12) for balanced urban and rural development

• Key for the implementation of the NUA as a way to operationalize integrated territorial development (ITD)

• The cases and lessons learned offer starting points for implementation

Conclusions (1): importance of City region food system approach

• Integrated approach, shift out of silo-thinking

• Involvement of various departments and programmes internal to city government

• Research and information exchange: Address limited data availability and costs, hands-on approach (trade-off with scientific preciseness)

• Political will and policy framework: planning instruments

• Multi-stakeholder engagement and decision-making

• Promote collaboration urban and rural authorities in a given territory, needs capacity building and financing

• Link vertical levels of government, play more attention to role subnational governments

Conclusions (2): Operationalization of CRFS concepts

• Include ‘Right to Food’ in (sub)national legislation

• Regulate urban expansion on agricultural land through land use planning, enhance secure tenure

• Design policies and strategies that promote prevention, reduction and safe re-use of food waste

• Strengthen social protection through recovery and redistribution of food for direct human consumption

• Promote urban, peri-urban and rural agriculture in city region

• Support short supply chains, investment in processing and distribution, marketing support

• Local and institutional procurement

• Consumer education and awareness

Conclusion (3): Provide national and legal frameworks embedding CRFS in broader legislation

Guido SantiniFAO Food for the Cities Programme

http://www.fao.org/fcit/fcit-home/en/

Camelia BucatariuFAO Nutrition and Food Systems Division

Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction (SAVE FOOD)http://www.fao.org/save-food/en/