Let's Food Cities | For a transition towards sustainable food systems in cities

OUR MISSION

A territorial approach to sustainable food

countries

cities involved

local actors involved

300

initiatives identified

OUR MESSAGE

Cities will soon be gathering more than 70% of the world population,

Today, cities are sources of innovations and can take decisions much more radical than the States. Sometimes cities have to take illegal decisions regarding national and international laws, in order to engage this necessary agro-ecological transition.

We must now build new local food governance: develop food self-sufficiency and cooperation between urban and rural areas. Local authorities have the skills to limit the artificialisation of land, develop a new type of agriculture, raise awareness of more sustainable food while reducing inequalities in the access to food.

All the territories must take this opportunity and build sustainable local food systems with all local stakeholders.

OUR EXPERTISE

Anna Faucher

Anna has a background in Political Science and International Cooperation. Following several professional experiences in International Organizations (UNESCO, FAO), she decided to complete her training with the Master’s degree “Innovations and Policies for Sustainable Food” at Montpellier SupAgro. Anna then worked for 3 years at the IUFN, which helps French local authorities setting up territorial food projects. It has thus conducted the assessment of the food system of Bordeaux, the Basque Country, provided support to the food projects of Nantes Métropole or the Community of Agglomeration of Le Havre. She also initiated the first food policy council in France: the Advisory Council for Sustainable Food Governance, led by the Bordeaux metropolis.

Louison Lançon

Louison has a background in agronomy (AgroSup Dijon). After various experiences in agroecology and agroforestry, she followed the Master “Innovations of Food Systems of the World”. For 3 years, Louison works at the United Nations Organization for Agriculture and Food (FAO), in the Food for the Cities Programme. She has worked in sensitizing and supporting local governments in developing countries in their transition to sustainable and resilient territorial food systems. Louison has conducted many city region food system assessment in Zambia or Senegal and organized several multistakeholder workshops to identify collective local projects.

Reach a global impact

Provide support to cities of the world to transition towards sustainable food systems

Why?

Loss of transparency, economic inequalities, carbon emissions, deforestation: the agro-industrial food system is facing its own limits. The local scale makes it possible to rethink agriculture and food by putting at the center the environmental and social needed requirements to respect our ecosystems.

Who?

Tomorrow’s world will be urban. Cities around the world are responsible for the majority of carbon emissions and pollution. Cities concentrate Men and activities. Today, cities must redefine the social contract that unites its inhabitants to ensure their quality of life and their resilience. From the city to the metropolis, from the province to the region, each territory, each scale has levers to preserve its agriculture and ensure the right to food for all.

How?

Building a new territorial food policy requires, above all, identifying the main social, economic and environmental challenges faced by each component of the food chain. We carry out a territorial assessment of the food system as well as a stakeholder mapping. It is essential to meet the various initiatives of the territory to refine the assessment, understand future dynamics and build with them an adapted and collective action plan.

We support them to develop a sustainable food system...

Disseminate and support alternatives

Inspire local actors towards projects with positive impacts

Why?

The transition to territorial food systems has to be collective: all stakeholders such as producers, consumers, businesses or public actors must change their practices. Many initiatives have emerged in city regions showing the innovation capacity of these different actors. In order to ensure an impact on a local scale, it is now necessary to disseminate, adapt and coordinate local initiatives.

Who?

Nowadays, the local food system is particularly complex and the decision-making processes particularly fragmented. Producers must make a transition to more sustainable practices, consumers move out of their comfort zone towards ethical choices, public actors must put back the general interest at the core of local policies, businesses must rethink their economical model: to do so, each actor should be able to find a story that inspires him, a methodology that suits him, a peer with whom he can start a dialogue.

How?

The goal of the Let’s Food Ideas platform is to bring together all the good ideas encountered over the different city regions studied. In a few lines, the reader must understand the objectives and the first steps of each initiative in order to find an answer, an inspiration, an example that will allow him to take action.

A tool to get inspired and disseminate

Go to the website

Make food a top priority issue

Sensitize and teach professionals of today and tomorrow

Why?

Food issues are almost absent from local public policies and university programs. Yet this theme is at the core of the territorial resilience objectives. It is urgent to give the keys of understanding and action to today and tomorrow’s professionals, so that they can understand the complexity of the issue and the different actors involved, to be able to propose adapted realistic and solutions.

Who?

Many disciplines are needed to understand the food issue: agronomy of course but also urban planning, geography, political sciences, sociology, nutrition, economics. The same applies to the different departments to involve in the municipalities: land planning, health, public procurement, agriculture, urban agriculture, green spaces, urban development, etc. Transversality is key to putting in place an effective food policy.

How?

We offer training to universities and schools with a wide variety of programs to ensure that food issues are taken into account in all professions. We also intervene in continuing education with local authorities or association and NGO representatives to discuss together this notion of territorial food system.