We are witnessing how strong demographic growth and evolving lifestyles fuel massive urbanisation. Concomitantly, our food systems are rapidly transforming and becoming more uniform and globalized, threatening smallholder agriculture and traditional diets, ostracizing part of the urban population, and suffocating our global ecosystem. This phenomenon creates new challenges for cities as they struggle to maintain food supplies ensuring a stable quality of life while diminishing their environmental footprint. Cities are being pushed to redefine their relationships with suburban and rural areas and adapt their food supply chains so that the needs of both are met : continued food security for urban-dwellers, sufficient revenues for small players in the food chain (including farmers), and protection of natural ressources.
Context

66
urban by 2050

795
million people undernourished

30
of food lost or wasted

30
of greenhouse gases due to the global food system
Local governments are instrumental to the establishment of sustainable food systems. Through their mandates in land and urban planning, school and collective catering, market regulation, and education, they wield the tools to transform food systems and make them fairer economically, environmentally, and socially. To this end, it is critical to use a systemic approach enabling them to see past the sectorial or geographic boundaries which confine policy decisions, and thus tackle challenges in a transversal, tailored manner.
Food is not a part of the mandate of any local authority and human and financial resources are sometimes insufficient to move this complex and cross-cutting issue into the political agenda. However, faced with the commitment of certain elected officials and local authorities workers, the mobilization of local stakeholders or even societal demand, co-constructed and inspiring projects are emerging in many territories. Cities have more and more innovative initiatives to promote and would benefit from learning from each other.
Let's Food
Faced with these observations, Anna Faucher and Louison Lançon created the Let’s Food association in June 2017 with the objective of supporting the territories in the establishment of sustainable and resilient food systems, relying on territorial cooperation and exchange of good practices at local, national and international levels.
Objectives
Support the food dynamics of local authorities in France and around the world by capitalizing on successful experiences from other territories.
Promote and operationalize the sharing of knowledge and initiatives with the various actors of the food system in order to accelerate an agroecological transition on a global scale.
Raise awareness and train in the challenges of sustainable territorial food in order to strengthen the skills necessary for the establishment of sustainable food systems.
Contacts
Association Let's Food
Bordeaux / Lyon
FRANCE
(+33) 06 86 40 43 89, (+33) 07 69 75 44 10
anna.faucher@letsfoodcities.org louison.lancon@letsfoodcities.org