New Book: Sustainable Urban Food Systems

Posted by on October 20, 2006

[posted from Community Food Security listserv]

Free Downloadable Book – ‘For Hunger-Proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems’

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-9394-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

The 20th century has witnessed a massive growth in urban populations. In 1990, one-third of the world’s people lived in cities of one million or more. As well, hunger and malnutrition are on the increase worldwide, as the global food system fails to satisfy the growing demand of the urban consumer.

For Hunger-proof Cities is the first book to fully examine food security from an urban perspective. It examines existing local food systems and ways to improve the availability and accessibility of food for city dwellers. It looks at methods to improve community-supported agriculture and cooperation between urban and rural populations. It explores what existing marketing and distribution structures can do to improve accessibility and what the emerging forms of food-distribution systems are, and how they can contribute to alleviating hunger in the cities. Finally, the book discusses the underlying structures that create poverty and inequality and examines the role of emergency food systems, such as food banks.