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City-‐Region Food Systems-‐Metrics
Working Group Meeting
FLEdGE Partnership Grant
June 21, 2016. University of Toronto, Scarborough, Toronto
Report prepared with the support of: Molly Anderson, Lauren Baker, Alison Blay-‐Palmer, Andrea Calori, Donald Cole, Damien Conare, Cornelia Flora, James Kuhns, Rachael Lefebvre, Charles Levkoe, Terry Marsden, Sally Miller, Ana Moragues-‐Faus, Wayne Roberts, Guido Santini, and Mbabazi Shumbusho.
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Special thanks to:
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for funding the partnership grant and the participants for
their great contribution
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Institutional Support
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Contents CITY-‐REGION FOOD SYSTEMS-‐METRICS ................................................................................................................ I WORKING GROUP MEETING ..................................................................................................................................... I
SPECIAL THANKS TO: ........................................................................................................................... II SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL FOR FUNDING THE PARTNERSHIP GRANT AND
THE PARTICIPANTS FOR THEIR GREAT CONTRIBUTION ..................................................................................... III INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT ....................................................................................................................................... III
MEETING PRESENTATION SYNOPSIS .............................................................................................. 9 SUSTAINABLE PLACES CITIES PROJECT ................................................................................................................. 9 CITY-‐REGION FOOD SYSTEMS (CRFS) -‐ TORONTO ......................................................................................... 10 FAO/RUAF CITY-‐REGION FOOD SYSTEMS (CRFS) ....................................................................................... 12 MILAN FOOD POLICY AND BEYOND .................................................................................................................... 14 ANDREA CALORI, ECONOMIA E SOSTENIBILITÀ (ESTÀ) ................................................................................. 14 EKOMER IN ECUADOR; HEALTH RESEARCH IN NORTHERN CANADIAN COMMUNITIES; PRINCE EDWARD
ISLAND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH INITIATIVE ................................................................................................ 16 IOWA COALITION, ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTHY FOOD ASSESSMENT .................................................. 20 FOODSCAPES & FOODSTYLES IN MONTPELLIER ............................................................................................... 22 OVERVIEW OF PEOPLE’S MONITORING FOR THE RIGHT TO FOOD & NUTRITION PROJECT FIAN AND
THE GLOBAL NETWORK FOR THE RIGHT TO FOOD & NUTRITION ................................................................ 23 DEVELOPING AND PILOTING URBAN AGRICULTURE INDICATORS IN TORONTO ........................................ 25
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Notes on Contributors Anderson, Molly (William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Food Studies) Anderson is developing a Food Studies Program at Middlebury College in Vermont http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/es/faculty/affiliates/node/499823, where she teaches about hunger and food security, fixing food systems, and sustainability. She is especially interested in multi-‐actor collaborations for sustainability, sustainability metrics and assessment, food system resilience, human rights in the food system, food security and the right to food in the US and other industrialized countries, and the transition to a post-‐petroleum food economy. She is also interested in bridging interests and concerns of academicians and community-‐based activists. Anderson is involved in food system planning at the state and regional scales, participates in the regional Food Solutions New England network and the national Inter-‐Institutional Network for Food, Agriculture & Sustainability, and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-‐Food). Baker, Lauren (Global Alliance for the Future of Food) Baker’s work has ranged from research on maize agrobiodiversity in Mexico to negotiating and developing municipal food policy and programs. Baker works as a consultant with the Global Alliance for the Future of Food http://futureoffood.org, supporting their strategic initiatives and programs. She is on a leave of absence from her role as a Food Policy Specialist with the Toronto Food Policy Council and Food Strategy at the City of Toronto’s Public Health Division. Lauren teaches at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. She is the author of Corn meets Maize: Food Movements and Markets in Mexico (2013). Calori, Andrea (EStà -‐ Economia e Sostenibilità, Italy) Calori has a PhD in Urban, Territorial and Environmental Planning and has been working since the early ’90’s on local and self-‐sustainable development policies. For about ten years Calori has been teaching in Politecnico di Milano as Contract Professor in in “Planning and Local Development”, “Urban and Regional Systems Analysis” and in the “Laboratory of Urban Planning” (Italy). In the same fields, he developed activities on citizens’ participation, territorial, rural and development policies characterized by approaches based on a “local vision to the planet”, on the empowerment of networks of local authorities and on a different measure of development. In this perspective he has been working both on the field and in theoretical and methodological researches with social and economic actors and networks and with many institutions at different levels (local authorities, regions, national government, EU Commission, Council of Europe, OECD, FAO & UNDP) Calori is one of the founders of the Italian Solidarity Based Economy Network and, for six years, he was President of Urgenci, the world coalition of regional and national networks of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) (es. CSA, AMAP, Teikei). Now he works mainly as partner in EStà -‐ Economia e Sostenibilità http://www.economiaesostenibilita.it, a non-‐profit think tank that is focused on the
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promotion of the culture of sustainability through a strategic approach to public policies and the start up of social economy enterprises. In EStà, Dr. Calori is the scientific coordinator of different projects and activities on food policies, among which the most relevant are those that are related to the Milan Food Policy and the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. Cole, Donald (Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health) Cole trained as a physician and practiced primary care, public health, occupational health and environmental health in a variety of settings in Canada and lower and middle-‐income countries. After a residency at McMaster, he qualified as a Royal College fellow in Occupational Medicine (1990) and Community Medicine (1992). With the International Potato Center, he has co-‐lead research on pesticides, urban agriculture and nutrition. A Tri-‐Council Eco-‐Research fellowship in environmental epidemiology led to research on environmental contaminants, ecosystems and human health. The role of Interim Director of Research at the Institute for Work & Health fostered multi-‐disciplinary research on evaluation of complex workplace interventions to reduce the burden of musculoskeletal disorders and other morbidity. Through the Dalla Lana School of Public Health http://www.dlsph.utoronto.ca, he currently teaches, mentors, and contributes mixed methods research evidence to practice, programs and policy, with an interest in agriculture, food systems and human health. Conaré, Damien (CHAIRE-‐UNESCO Alimentations du monde) Graduated from ISTOM, an engineering school in agronomics. Conaré initially worked for various magazines in the agricultural press: Cultivar, Afrique agriculture & Marchés tropicaux et méditerranéens. He then joined the ONG Solagral (Solidarités agricoles et alimentaires -‐ Food and agricultural Solidarity) in Montpellier to ensure the publishing of the quarterly journal on development, agriculture and environment & Courrier de la planète, from which he became the editor. As such, he has regularly organized and hosted conferences and debates around the topics covered in the journal: food security, climate change, migration and development. In 2011, Conaré was appointed the Secretary General of the UNESCO Chair in World Food System http://www.chaireunesco-‐adm.com, to develop activities around three axes: dialogue between science and society (conferences, seminars, publications); the coordination of research programs (more specifically on the topic of sustainable urban food systems) and training programs (in particular for a master degree on Innovations and policies for sustainable food). Faus-‐Moragues, Ana (School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University, UK) Faus is a researcher working on urban food, governance, collective action, social justice and sustainable food systems. She investigates these topics mainly through participatory action research processes with civil society organizations, the public sector and communities. At the moment, she participates in a range of local, national and international networks investigating the vulnerabilities of food systems to deliver good food for all and assessing the impact of urban food policies. For
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example, she coordinated an action-‐based research project with the Sustainable Food Cities Network to develop a set of indicators to inform city governments and communities as they strive to drive change in the food system. See http://sustainablefoodcities.org/getstarted/developingindicators for more information. Flora-‐Butler, Cornelia (Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor of Agriculture and Sociology, Emerita, Iowa State University & Research Professor at Kansas State University) Flora served for 15 years as Director of the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, a twelve state research and extension institute. She teaches Latin American History at Regis University and Rural Innovation at the University of Cordoba in Spain. She held of the Endowed Chair in Agricultural Systems at the University of Minnesota, head of the Sociology Department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a University Distinguished Professor at Kansas State University, and a program officer for the Ford Foundation for the Andean Region and Southern Cone in Latin America. She is an adjunct professor in Faculty of Fitotecnia at the National Agrarian University of Peru in La Molina and in the Latin American Rural Development Program at the National University of Argentina, Camahue. She is author and editor of a number of recent books, including Interactions Between Agroecosystems and Rural Communities, Rural Policies for the 1990s, and Sustainable Agriculture in Temperate Zones. She wrote Pentecostalism in Colombia: Baptism by Fire and Spirit. Her latest book is Rural Communities: Legacy and Change, is in its 5th edition. Flora’s current research addresses alternative strategies of community development and community-‐based natural resource management in the light of changing socio-‐technical regimes and climate change. Kuhns, James (Toronto Urban Growers) Kuhns works in food security and urban agriculture related activities. He is the Co-‐coordinator of Toronto Urban Growers http://torontourbangrowers.org and an associate of the Ryerson Centre for Studies in Food Security where he teaches courses on urban agriculture. He was the coordinator of the GrowTO urban agriculture initiative that resulted in the formation of the Toronto Agriculture Program. Mr. Kuhns is a former president of the American Community Gardening Association and is a member of Sustain Ontario’s Municipal Regional Policy Network. Levkoe, Charles (Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Food Systems; Assistant Professor, Department of Health Sciences, Lakehead University) Levkoe is the Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Food Systems and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Lakehead University https://www.lakeheadu.ca/users/L/clevkoe. His community engaged research uses a food systems lens to better understand the importance of, and connections between social justice, ecological regeneration, regional economies and active democratic engagement. Working directly with a range of scholars and community-‐based practitioners across North America and Europe, Levkoe studies the evolution of the
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broader collective of social movement networks that views the right to food as a component of more sustainable futures. Miller, Sally (Consultant & Author) Miller has worked in sustainable food and agriculture and co-‐ops for almost twenty-‐five years both in Canada and in the U.S. She has worked with a range of co-‐ops, including the Ontario Natural Food Co-‐op, Organic Meadow, Fourth Pig Worker Co-‐op, and West End Food Co-‐op in Canada, and Greenstar Co-‐op and Finger Lakes Organic Growers’ Co-‐op in the U.S. She was the Project Coordinator for the Regional Food Hub Project at Ontario’s Local Organic Food Co-‐ops Network. Miller is also currently the Research Coordinator for the City Region Food Systems Toronto Project, part of an international research project looking at urban/rural food systems. Her publications include Edible Action: Food Activism and Alternative Economics (Fernwood Publishing, 2008) and Belongings: The Fight for Land and Food (available now, Fernwood Publishing 2016). Roberts, Wayne (Urban Food Issues Consultant & Author) Roberts is one of Canada's leading analysts in the field of city food policy. From 2000 to 2010, he managed the influential Toronto Food Policy Council. Since retiring, he has worked globally as a consultant on urban food issues, volunteered for several leading public interest groups and written extensively about food security topics for a variety of academic and popular publications. He is the author of 12 books, including The No-‐Nonsense Guide to World Food and Food for City Building: A field for Planners, Actionists & Entrepreneurs. Santini, Guido (Technical Coordinator, United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization) Santini is Technical Coordinator of the FAO "Food for the Cities" Programme within the Plant Production and Protection Division http://www.fao.org/agriculture/crops/thematic-‐sitemap/theme/hort-‐indust-‐crops/en/. The programme provides support to cities to promote sustainable food systems in a city region context by strengthening rural-‐urban linkages. In addition, Guido is a member of the FAO team that is supporting the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) process.
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Introduction The Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged (FLEdGE) Partnership is a five-‐year research and knowledge mobilization project based at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Centre for Sustainable Food Systems. The partnership includes seven Canadian research nodes, one in each of the Northwest Territories, Alberta/ British Columbia, northern Ontario, southern Ontario, eastern Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. There are also three Working Groups: one on Agro-‐ecology, a second on Innovative Governance and the third on City-‐Region Food Systems-‐Metrics (CRFS-‐Metrics). The latter has been meeting by conference calls since the fall of 2015 and includes experts from Sustainable Places Research Institute at Cardiff University; Toronto Food Policy Council; Toronto Public Health; Toronto Urban Growers, Canadian Research Chair in Food Systems, Lakehead University; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto; United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization City-‐Region Food System Project; Economia e Sostenibilità (EStà); RUAF; Middlebury College Vermont; CHAIRE-‐UNESCO Alimentation du monde in Montpellier, France; and, Iowa State University. This report presents the proceedings from the first face-‐to-‐face meeting of most of its members. This first meeting was structured to facilitate knowledge sharing, the identification of potential collaborative and comparative opportunities between the various metrics projects, as well as knowledge mobilization opportunities. This report provides a synopsis of each presentation, as well as links where available.
Meeting Presentation Synopsis Sustainable Places Cities Project Terry Marsden & Ana Moragues Faus, Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University Drs. Marsden and Faus presented on the work with the Sustainable Food Cities Network in the UK – a network of 44 cities, towns, boroughs, counties and districts that use food as a vehicle to drive positive change. The project Enhancing the Impact of Sustainable Urban Food Strategies (http://sustainablefoodcities.org/getstarted/developingindicators) is evolving. The overall goals of this project are: 1. To define with grassroots organisations and local practitioners what defines success for a sustainable food city; and, 2. To translate those conversations into an indicator toolbox to inform city governments and communities as they strive to drive change in the food system. Beginning with a literature review on sustainability and food security indicators (http://sustainablefoodcities.org/Portals/4/Documents/Measuring%20progress%20towards%20sustainable%20food%20cities_final%20report%20w%20appendixes.pdf) the researchers held four workshops in different parts of the UK with representatives of the public sector, civil society organisations, private sector, consultants and academics to co-‐develop this vision with associated metrics. The three main areas discussed and examined are sustainability, health, economics and
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the environment. This empirical material is being assembled and transformed into an indicator toolbox that will be tested in pilot communities. As well, the indicators are being linked to other ‘Sustainable Places’ projects. Part of this work connects actions with indicators. This data is relevant for agencies in terms of the environment, climate change and economic development. The project has been driven by the needs of the people. Several cities have also been engaged. The food partnerships are funded in part by public health. The cities are asking to test the indicators. As part of a bottom up exercise, the indicators have been divided into 6 different dimensions. There are no standardized objectives as each city is different and has a different entry point. Accordingly, there are different pathways to the improvement of food systems for each project. City-‐Region Food Systems (CRFS) -‐ Toronto Lauren Baker, Toronto Food Policy Council and Sally Miller, CRFS Project Coordinator Drs. Baker and Miller presented on the City-‐Region Food Systems project in Toronto, one urban region in a seven-‐city project. The Toronto part of the CRFS project is supported through RUAF and the FAO by the Carasso Foundation, as well as by the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems. Lauren provided the context and history for the work as a foundation for the on-‐going CRFS assessment work. The project works to align across the multiple regional entry points, identify where there is complementarity and convergence so system analysis can bridge into other priorities and to broader regional priorities. For example, land use-‐planning is an important entry point as it sets key parameters for the region and links to a complex set of conditions for food systems assessment. Land use planning us particularly relevant in the Toronto context as it has just undergone an extensive revision and review that included input from food system and agricultural experts. The result of that process is increased consistency between natural heritage conservation efforts with agricultural farmland conservation efforts. A very dense urban environment dominates Southern Ontario that exerts significant growth pressures. Growth projections were mapped out in the ‘Places to Grow Act’ that tells municipalities how many residents they will have over the next 30 years and how space will be developed. ‘Places To Grow’ includes a greenbelt for natural and agricultural heritage preservation and a white belt for development. The creation of the Greenbelt resulted in conflict between impacted farmers and policy-‐makers. In 2013, the provincial government passed the Local Food Act. Targets and goals are being written for food literacy and some weak goals for local food procurement. Thinking about metrics, there are opportunities to strengthen the land use policy framework and the Local Food Act within the broader provincial and regional context. That said, the language in the Act is interesting and unique as it speaks to fostering local food economies and the multiple and diverse food systems in the province and so recognizes the significance of a systems approach.
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Speaking again to the idea of multiple entry points helps to capture the pressures that cities and regions are dealing with more generally. One big driver is issue of equity that are moving from downtown cores through (im) migration and gentrification to the suburbs so that poverty reduction is now a key priority for change. Most city and regional governments are developing poverty reduction strategies indicators especially in Toronto with food access. As well as poverty, there is pressure through green spaces, the environment and climate change adaptation/mitigation and economic development and the importance of the food sector. These are examples from Toronto where there has been success at embedding food. Metrics work in turn can support and inform these policy processes. The conflicts related to the Greenbelt resulted in farmers organizing across municipalities and regions through agricultural advisory groups and food policy councils to create and develop the Action Plan that was the impetus for the foundation of the Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance. That structure is interesting as there are seven regional governments and municipalities that work to align policies in food and agriculture. Prior to the launch of the CRFS project, other indictor projects were underway. For example, the Toronto Food Policy Council led the ‘Food by Ward’ project (http://tfpc.to/food-‐by-‐ward/food-‐by-‐ward-‐resources) that maps food assets in the city. This work was undertaken to enable advocacy for spaces in the city. At the regional level through the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) there has been a parallel mapping project of agri-‐food assets including farming, processing, distribution and access assets. The opportunity for the CRFS project is to take this work as simple points on a map and analyze how to strengthen the system as a whole, and to identify where there are opportunities and gaps across the region through the various coalitions and alliances through various entry points. Sally Miller presented an update on the on-‐going CRFS process. The task force guiding the Toronto CRFS work chose a large city-‐region as being the most representative and data relevant for the project. There are more than 50,000 data points in the GGH asset mapping which does not include a lot of other food consumption data points as it is just focused on agriculture. The goals are to examine food flows, impacts and barriers in seven cities and to identify shared indicators. There are three phases. The Toronto CRFS is in Phase 2, with Phase 3 intended to develop short and long-‐term policy goals. Phase 1 involved gathering in and aggregating secondary data that ended with a situational analysis. Phase 2 involves primary data gathering. The Task Force determined that the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) made the most sense for the geographic focus of the Toronto CRFS research as it includes farming, processing and distribution assets. The research team is doing an analysis from this work, getting to know how to strengthen the systems and identifying opportunities and gaps. As there were many different ways to approach this assessment, we identified critical issues as a starting point. Initially, we chose food flows as the lens of the research assessment, including
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interviews and case studies. At the same time, we are also looking at four other areas: 1. Labour, specifically work quality. For example, there is interest in what would identify decent, secure, long-‐term work and to go beyond economic indicators such as jobs; 2. Democratic engagement, e.g. How many people are involved in consultations? And, how is their input considered?; 3. Education; and, 4. Waste. The approach builds on clusters of activities, what Sally calls ‘webs of action’. Rather than look at all foods across the region it was decided to narrow the research to top foods, specifically carrots, apples, beef and chicken." Interviews engaged specific actors and champions and the people they work with and asks, what makes a network or collaboration work? Which are the links that make a stronger more resilient food system for the long term? And, which are more casual and could be broken more easily? The research is pointing to the importance of trust as well as the results of broken contracts and the importance of the social capital that knits these networks together. The Holland Marsh Grower’s Association and 100km Foods are some examples of organizations that connect farmers to the consumers through distribution of fresh foods. The research links into large-‐scale production questions through, for example, migrant labour. The situational analysis from Phase I provide basic numbers for the seven original points along the food system as identified by the international team. The first task was to identify existing sources for information. There is a particular interest in processing and distribution based on the GGH. The primary research is focused on what makes long-‐term resilience in food systems. As well, while the analysis began with economic, social and environmental indicators, this work is revealing that there are interesting indicators that hit more than one food system area – these are complex indicators that capture multiple benefits, for instance Mapleton’s organic dairy. They were early champions in the regional food system. In this case they have self-‐milking apparatus for their cows, have in barn compost that is then spread on their fields, an open barn so cows can go out when they choose. Mapleton’s also runs an on-‐farm store that aggregates meat, dairy and other products from nearby farms, they process their milk into ice cream that is sold across the country and solar panels, all as examples of sustainable, revenue generating activities. Understanding this and other webs of action links the metrics to a story. FAO/RUAF City-‐Region Food Systems (CRFS) Guido Santini, Technical Advisor and Programme Coordinator, UN-‐FAO Food for the Cities Programme This presentation reported on the City-‐Region Food System assessment in three pilot cities (Colombo, Sri Lanka; Lusaka and Kitwe, Zambia; Medellin, Columbia is still in progress; will soon begin work in Dakar, Senegal) http://www.fao.org/in-‐action/food-‐for-‐cities-‐programme/resources/outputs-‐from-‐pilot-‐cities/en/. The FAO and RUAF are working together on CRFS projects in these cities using a common methodology and by trying to create linkages among the different cities. The FAO cities are in the Global South. The overall objective is to operationalize the
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CRFS concept in different cities, develop an overall methodology and a toolkit that can be used in different contexts, and to strengthen capacity in some of the city study sites. This project seeks to develop a more holistic and regionally expanded version of food systems so operationalizing this definition presents challenges. Defining the city-‐region food system has been quite challenging in the different cities, especially given the lack of institutional mechanisms and experience with a territorial approach to food. The CRFS has been preliminarily defined and mapped on the basis of the food flows of the main commodities that are consumed in the cities as well as jurisdictional and political boundaries. The mapping will be refined in the course of the 2nd phase of the assessment based on a more detailed understanding of actual food flows. The results of the 1st phase of the assessment have been extensively presented and discussed in the different cities through multi-‐stakeholder consultations. The consultative process in the cities have identified the following priorities: Colombo: Priority areas 1: Food security, nutrition, and safety in urban areas Priority areas 2: Food waste and losses Priority area 3: Value chain management (using key representative commodities) Priority area 4: Climate change and natural resource management including resilience to climate shocks Kitwe: Priority areas 1: Food processing, supply and distribution system Priority areas 2: Production capacity of smallholder producers (including land availability, access and tenure) Priority area 3: Natural resources degradation Lusaka: Priority areas 1: Food processing, supply and distribution system Priority areas 2: Production capacity and sustainability of production systems Priority area 3: Food security and nutrition in urban areas Medellin: Priority areas 1: Emphasis on governance, broader governance needed in context of territorial considerations The Phase II in-‐depth assessment will focus on the priority areas identified. For each priority, an in-‐depth case study is being implemented with primary data collection. On the basis of the CRFS indicator framework that is being developed, local teams are identifying a set of key indicators, representing the prioritized key issues that will help guide the data collection. A key priority is also to establish multi-‐institutional and multi-‐stakeholder dialogues to facilitate shifts from silo thinking. Having institutions that have a sectoral mandate makes fostering dialogue a complex challenge. There are also barriers in terms of the availability of consistent and reliable secondary information on food systems. The exception is Medellin
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where there is ample information to develop a solid sense of the city-‐region food system. Phase III will address policy priorities to support and enhance CRFS. A common key priority is to better understand the food supply and distribution system. Within this context, cities need a better understanding of where their food comes from and how to address issues of economic efficiency and social inclusion. Food waste and losses is another area that needs more attention including options to reduce waste and to make food available through, for example, food banks. In the African city case studies there is also the challenge of production capacity as smallholders still have limited production capacity and access to markets. In terms of the indicator frame, different sustainability areas have been identified including social equity and inclusion, economic growth and efficiency, environmental sustainability and more cross-‐sectoral governance as well as vulnerability and resilience. These dimensions are being characterized across all the food chain steps from production to waste. A number of indicators have been identified and the goal is to tailor the indicators to each city. The framework has been submitted to the various cities, each of which has identified relevant indicators. In many cities most data is not available to monitor and assess. Given these complexities, the process needs the endorsement of policy-‐makers to succeed. Next steps include refining the current framework and indicator list, and to connect the framework to the SDG process as this will be the framework cities use to organize their future work so the CRFS needs to be in keeping with the SDGs. This work is also linked to the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. The FAO together with other organizations was part of the technical team that supported the drafting of the Pact Declaration and Framework for Action. After its signature, the FAO officially committed to support the Pact by developing a monitoring framework to guide implementation. Through the CRFS assessment work we are trying to link city-‐region food systems work with the Pact. There is also the need to make the CRFS work consistent with the New Urban Agenda. Milan Food Policy and Beyond Andrea Calori, Economia e Sostenibilità (EStà) Dr. Calori presented the work undertaken through EStà (Economia e Sostenibilità http://www.economiaesostenibilita.it), a non-‐government organization working on sustainable economies. The organization’s background has different research foci including, but not exclusive to, sustainable food systems. The presentation provided an introduction to the origins of food policy in Milan. The beginning of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact was based on the experience of trying to combine civil society organisations and their activities with non-‐orthodox research in the region in combination with institutional processes. EStà worked for many years in supporting activities including action research and civil society mobilization related to food issues in Milan but without an institutional
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commitment to move forward with food policy. While there were a lot of policies for things like school canteens, a comprehensive food policy was missing. The food policy pact origins date from about 10 years ago. About that time, a framework was created which is now known as the city-‐region food systems for the City of Milan and its surrounding areas. A few years ago the organization tried to support civil society organizations and farmers to create an integrated map combining information about farming activities, value chains, environmental data and social relations in the region and territory. There are different institutional coalitions of farmers and three agricultural districts to combine local networks of production and consumption from the country to the city. Drawing on the industrial district model, based on existing co-‐operatives and social economic activity in agriculture, agricultural districts were established to foster these territorial linkages for local production and consumption. The Milan Food Policy Pact was created from this background, and there is now a process of connecting all these issues. From this groundwork it was possible to create an alliance with the different organizations including the municipality of Milan with the support of the Fondazione Cariplo. The food policy was based on four steps: assessment, public consultation, participatory processes and the definition of food policy. This process unfolded between July 2014 and October 2015. During the assessment phase, in addition to the value change, social-‐cultural dynamics were also considered for the food systems in the city. A key question was, what are the main drivers for a more sustainable food-‐based economy in Milan? EStà works on the sustainable economy to have a broader vision beyond food. There is a need to understand the drivers of a sustainable economy in Milan, in which food can be a good driver. Accordingly, the assessment was organized into two phases. Value chain production was the first stage of the assessment that explored the relationships in the food cycle. The idea was to understand the role of food, the inputs (soil, water and environmental components), also the cultural and legal influences, and outputs (e.g. greenhouse gases) to understand food system flows. A lot of data was collected to create a knowledge base that would allow for the interpretation of the food system from a circular perspective. Some findings were used in the policy process while more extensive data was used in technical consultations. For public consultations, ten issues were extracted and small booklets were distributed on-‐line that looked at these important issues in Milan food systems. The analysis was used to develop a methodology and look at what was important for public discussions and consultations in the context of circular economies. The organization also held game-‐inspired interviews and workshops with the City Board in order to get input, connect policies, break down the silos and formal roles between departments, facilitate integrated policy and help change perspectives on food systems. For the coming years, the aim is to support the new organization of the municipality. After October 2015 and the signing of the MUFPP, the objective was to define Pact guidelines. These voluntary guidelines were unanimously supported by the entire city council. In the last weeks, the Milan city board approved a feasibility study to
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create a metropolitan food council that is connected to the new Italian law for metropolitan cities. In addition to understanding local food systems, it is also important to understand how international laws affect local laws especially in the European Union. The common list of indicators used by international organizations applies a global lens that is difficult to apply at the local level. It is important to have standard indicators but, from a governance point of view, if people do not understand the value of food then it is a challenge to integrate food into policies. Moving to standard indicators and a participatory approach can be effective. Often, we do not have the tools to analyse, interpret and support policies. As a next step, we need to discuss how to move from indicators to policy. Questions raised include:
• What is the relationship between interpretation and governance? What are the indicators that can be used by both practitioners and policy-‐makers? How do we account for different perceptions of place as we undertake assessment?
• How can we shift from components of the food system to a more dynamic approach to avoid having a silo approach that is embedded as part of the assessment process and the indicators?
• How do we include common goods in the investigation, e.g. social well-‐being; relations between cultural identity and nature; impacts of laws from/at different scales.
• How can we link indicators to activities and also the data collection process? e.g. how can local food be made available through school canteens?
• What is the capability of society to move toward an approach based on a reproduction of social, environmental and economic capital?
• How can we measure the common good that should be central to assessment, through perhaps qualitative measures?
• What are the roles in reproducing the various capitals as the circle economy is considered?
Ekomer in Ecuador; Health Research in Northern Canadian Communities; Prince Edward Island Environmental Health Initiative Donald Cole, Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto Dr. Cole briefly discussed three projects he is currently involved in that link to food systems metrics. The first project is EKOMER http://healthbridge.ca/blog/entry/ekocomer, led by a civil society movement in Ecuador working in three city regions: Riobamba, Quito and Otavalo. The CSO members include production cooperatives, distributors and their networks, restauranteurs, radio announcers and government institutions that promote indigenous foodways and products. The project has three years of funding from IDRC (Canadian International Development Research Centre). The discussion about indicators linked to social movements has been very informative and interesting.
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The indicators need to represent what the people feel is important to their relationships and be actionable. In particular, there has been a debate questioning the rationale for collecting data that would not move the agenda, so, in the end they developed a set of five things a household can do to become more responsible and aware consuming households. The second set of two grant proposals emerged around an inter-‐sector prevention project focused on the environment and health in northern communities. The team plans to work with a regional observatory centred on cities that could be more rurally based, but linked to agriculture. The central research questions are, what is important information to collect? And, how would we describe environmental health indicators particularly in the northern communities where food production is low and food costs are very high due to high transportation costs? They will be advised whether the funding application was successful by the end of the year. The other grant proposal is in Prince Edward Island (PEI), a big agricultural producer with significant environmental issues including contamination of ground water through nitrates and heavy pesticide use, particularly in potato production. PEI is an interesting case study as only about 150,000 people live on the island with three levels of government represented (municipal, provincial and federal). A group of stakeholders involved in the project came together to form an inter-‐sectoral council to address these challenges. The work looks at shifting agriculture to be more environmentally friendly. The province wants to provide the indicators but they do not readily link the environment with agriculture, health and other factors. Some of the questions being explored include, what is the relationship between existing indicators? How to develop more local and regional food economies, and what are the alternatives to the export markets established through multi-‐nationals? And, will the council be able to shift to more interconnectedness? As with other projects, there is interest in linked and complex indicators. Food Counts: A Pan-‐Canadian Sustainable Food Systems Report Card Charles Levkoe, Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Food Systems, Lakehead University Rachael Lefebvre, PhD Student, University of Toronto Alison Blay-‐Palmer, CIGi Chair Sustainable Food Systems, Balsillie School of International Affairs The presentation focused on the development of a pan-‐Canadian sustainable food systems report card. To set the background, the first step in the project was a scan of existing report cards developed at multiple scales across the globe and of indicators available from various institutions in Canada. From this scan it was observed that at the local level many community based metrics projects as well as specific food sectors do not take a systems approach. For example, report cards put out by the Conference Board of Canada, the University of Guelph, and the Global Food System Index presented at the World Economic Forum are all economic-‐centric and ignore many factors that contribute to sustainability. On the other side, report cards that do address issues of social justice and ecological sustainability tend to be focused at a regional scale.
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An important consideration for future work is that indicators and reports have to be practical, and reliable but also visionary with an explicit and defined trajectory. Also indicators are not neutral, they often have implicit objectives and/or impacts in the way we interpret and use them. In a paper on the development of food sovereignty indicators (Simón Reardon, J. A., & Pérez, R. A. (2010). Agroecology and the Development of Indicators of Food Sovereignty in Cuban Food Systems. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 34(8), 907–922), the authors talk about the process of building indicators that would provide political direction at different geographic scales for the implementation of a food sovereignty proposal. At the same time they favour the idea of a movement of self-‐reflexivity for existing practices while also supporting the collective shaping of future practices so that practical and visionary goals are blended. The indicators provided for the emerging Food Counts report card use a food sovereignty framework and include social, economic and political factors and links this project to the Canadian food movements but also the global food sovereignty movement. The intention is to create a report card that uses a food systems lens and explicitly addresses social, economic and ecological sustainability. By adopting this framework and looking at the existing indicators, the Food Counts metrics will help establish benchmarks, baselines and identify information gaps, to help us make decisions about where we want to go in the future and to help identify case studies. An aim is to understand the linkages so we can better understand how to transform the food systems and ensure they work better for people, the environment and economic systems. In terms of preliminary framework, we propose a pan-‐Canadian framework that takes into account researchers and organizations, food movements, and visionary perspectives. So, for example, we considered the core principles of food sovereignty (Nyeleni, 2007), and also the Food Secure Canada’s ‘People’s Food Policy’, a multi-‐year public consultation, pan-‐Canadian and collective report writing process (Food Secure Canada 2007). Applying food sovereignty to the report card framework provides a social justice perspective, for instance including a right to food, people’s right to decide on their food systems, and food as a sacred part of all life. Food sovereignty is relevant as it helps to bridge theoretical and practical ideas and has been adopted by international social movements, global institutions and organizations. Food sovereignty allows for the consideration of food as a counter-‐proposal to the more prominent ideas of the more mainstream food system. Finally, it also disrupts the north-‐south divide as the core ideas originated as a global dialogue and continue to unite people around food systems transformation. The seven pillars of food sovereignty are:
1. Food for the people 2. Values food providers 3. Localizes food systems 4. Puts control locally
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5. Builds knowledge and skills 6. Works with nature 7. Food is sacred (this 7th pillar was added through the FSC People’s Food Policy
to specifically address indigenous rights)
The selection criteria for the Food Counts report card are that included indicators are: focused on the national scale (or provincial scale indicators that could be aggregated); measurable; available and cost effective; stable, reliable and credible; understandable and usable; and, finally, that they are sensitive to change. In terms of the process, we gathered and reviewed existing report cards into a document with hundreds of indicators. This was then compared with potential sources of information using available data within Canada. The following are examples of some of the sub-‐themes that emerged:
1. Food for the people: health (consumption of fruits and vegetables); as some indicators (e.g. social assistance rates) are collected provincially data is not consistent across jurisdictions; poverty (income using Low-‐income measure); food access; food safety, availability, community food services; food deserts potential data source but it would require substantial analysis of existing data to develop this indicator for all of Canada; food bank use; food expenditures
2. Values food providers: farm-‐based indicators e.g. profitability; farm operator characteristics; farm worker characteristics, e.g. number of workers, worker safety
3. Localizes food systems 4. Puts control locally: categories 3 and 4 are challenging to populate without
extensive primary data collection work; for ‘Puts control locally’ could use redundant trade, local food processing, institutional food procurement, but these numbers are not readily available nationally, or across the country; other indicators could be the number of municipal food policy initiatives, food system networks, what grants are being awarded related to food and food systems
5. Builds knowledge and skills: many gaps nationally as, for example, education is a provincial/ territorial responsibility
6. Works with nature: many indicators available, e.g. soil, GHG, pesticide use, waste, organic farming, preservation practices; need to consider that many of these indicators are only collected every five years as part of the Census of Agriculture
7. Food is sacred: No indicators for this to date, this is an emergent area, this may be an area where we need to do some adapting of the framework. (Flora suggested food festivals as an indicator of food as sacred).
It is important to note that many indicators could go into multiple categories. The emergent questions from this work include:
1. What framework do we use? 2. What scale is appropriate? 3. Are we missing any indicators?
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4. How do we share the data? Translate it into a useful format, and what makes sense for different audiences?
Iowa Coalition, Environmental and Healthy Food Assessment Cornelia Flora, Distinguished Emeritus Professor, Iowa State University Dr. Flora focused on ways to achieve ecosystem health, economic security and fairness for all through inclusion and equity. She raised questions about how to align pathways to achieve all of these goals at once. In order to illustrate the opportunities and challenges, Dr. Flora used the Iowa Coalition and its focus on environmental and healthy food assessment to capture the multifunctionality of food systems at the nexus of water and food. The indicators are based on work by the USDA Forest Service as well as community initiatives that were trying to move from linear board feet for wood as an indicator of forest success to a series of community based indicators that allowed people to say, ‘we are making a difference’. Communities and Forest Services were asked why they thought they were successful and what made them successful. This led to a menu of indicators reporting on five different outcomes. This in turn inspired people to come up with their own indicators. The process was facilitated through a format to gather data and then report the findings. For example, in Maryland where siltation of a river was problematic and they needed to work with upstream people to make a difference, the mayor put on his white tennis shoes and walked out into the bay to see where he lost sight of his feet, recalling that people used to be up to their necks and still see their feet. This became a metric so that every year at the same time he would walk to the point where he could still see his feet and this would be posted on a bulleting board. As the siltation got better, in part though their work with farmers up and down the watershed, people celebrated enthusiastically as the new siltation level was reported widely throughout the state. This was a very rustic but visible indicator of turbidity for the water that could be linked directly to soil run off. Another successful initiative was to use a festival based on the indicator findings. Currently the focus in Iowa is to try to activate through multiple entry points into a very disjointed system. The efforts began with civil society through a state food policy council. Initially this succeeded as it had the support of the governor, but now that is not the case. They are now working with more siloed organizations for local food systems so while the pieces exist they are neither working together or coordinated. At this juncture, they are starting with the notion of a social enterprise where the market needs to play a bigger part. To begin, they studied the situation and realized that they are missing financial capital, which is the market, and missing political capital, which is the state. So the questions emerged, how to get these pieces into the organizational framework to try to bring about a more sustainable ecosystem that has ecosystem health, social equity and financial security for all? The current approach uses the market combined with state and civil societies to form a partnership. The most successful example emerged in northeast Iowa where there is a farmers food system that has done well getting food into schools. In this case, the
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partnership combined market with the state through cooperative extension and civil society. It is so successful it is being modeled throughout the state. Given that many governments are non-‐functional and there is a lack of funding for organizations that are functioning. A key consideration is how to =align organizations so that there is social inclusion and equity, a healthy ecosystem and economic security. Adopting natural capital as an entry point to considering indicators, Iowa has a water quality issue. This is a public health issue and also tells us what is going on with the rest of the environment. While water quality can be measured, it is very contextual. Previously, most of the surface and ground water was contaminated from city sewer systems but agriculture is now the major culprit due to the shift to and dependence on high input, low value mono-‐crops that tend to create conditions for soil erosion. The extent of cover crops that can protect the soil, redefine soil quality from the basic N-‐P-‐K to farmers looking for other indicators to help figure out what is happening with their soil. As well, water quality brings in the health community and related indicators. Another issue is biodiversity. In this case, butterflies and bee colony problems are seen as a good indicator of biodiversity as they signal the presence of multiple, varied flowering plants. They are also a good indicator of economic activity as honey can be sold locally. Cultural capital is important as it can mobilize CSOs including the faith community and service organizations. Issues around hunger has been a motivator to mobilize people and churches turning their lawns into community gardens and alliances being made to address local food hunger challenges. Another part of cultural capital addresses ‘what is good to eat’? The focus on community gardens is excellent as people tend to like what they grow. Educators are realizing that children can learn from early on to like vegetables if they are involved in growing them. Grandmothers are working with grandchildren, crossing cultural and age divides, as they learn to grow various fruits and vegetables. Even though human capital in terms of obesity is seen is a major issue the governor has cut all relevant health programs but at the same time, wants to be number one in health. This has led to the question of how to get access to fresh, nutritious food. We know that the healthy choice needs to be the easy choice so examples of Toronto farmers’ markets among others are very informative. The final example draws on the challenges created by tile drainage in farmer’s fields as it leaches nutrients from the soil and puts them in watercourses. One thing small farmers are doing is to remove the tile drainage and using settling ponds to collect chemicals so that water is being cleaned locally. This makes visible change at the local scale as pollinator habitats are revived and small businesses take root. This builds on social capital through networks. There is work to document these networks and capture everyone’s place in the food system by creating social maps representing how people are connected. Political capital is extremely valuable as it turns the norms and values into rules and regulations that can be enforced. Global statements, e.g. the MUFPP, normalize values and make what food movements are
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doing more acceptable in the face of property and other rights that that tend to block progress. Learning the rules is crucial in order to understand the food system and to make these systems work and bring in a new set of actors to use resources in new and creative ways. With respect to financial capital and built capital there is a need to figure out what is missing and how to create synergies. Relevant questions include, how do we change land-‐use? In the market and civil society example, we created a group called SILT, a land trust to give land to small farmers to grow food for local markets. Another example is the use of gathered food as resources for various community groups and to understand that economic security is not necessarily tied to growth. To make sure we are measuring the kind of things to tell us what we are meeting all the opportunities associated with the multiple capitals and to tell us what is missing.
Foodscapes & Foodstyles in Montpellier Damien Conare, Secrétaire general, Chaire Unesco "alimentations du monde" Montpellier, SupAgro Conare presented the developing project ‘Foodscapes and Foodstyles in Montpellier’ as a way to explore questions about metrics and sustainable food systems. This project builds on the SURFOOD book that will be out in the fall of 2016 that models and conceptualizes sustainable urban food systems. The proposed Montpellier project begins with connections between the foodscape starting with producers and linking this to food consumption and eating practices of urban dwellers. The objective is to characterize the relationship between the urban foodscape and the practices of urban dwellers. The goal is to capture and explore the intersection of food habits and sustainability, especially perceptions, as more research is needed linking the environment and eating habits. The proposal was submitted to the Agropolis Foundation (http://www.agropolis-‐fondation.fr). While there is substantial research into food environments and body mass index there is less attention on the relationship between environment and food habits. The context for the proposed work follows the 5-‐year SURFood project:
• 2014, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole (a community of 31 municipalities) launched an Agro-‐ecological and Food Policy across its territory.
• 2015, several researchers contributed to the definition of this policy: è Interest was expressed to incorporate the effects of the cityscape on
consumption and food practices into this policy; è However, it was also revealed that there is a lack of data available to the
metropolitan technical services; è The metropolitan area expressed its interest to be included in this research
as a partner. The hypothesis for the research is that individual consumption and eating practices, foodstyles, are a decisive factor for the sustainability of food systems. Consumers affect the environment, their own health and social equity through:
• their level of consumption of goods (e.g. animal products or processed
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products); • their choices of products within the different options (e.g. organic or fair
trade); and, • their domestic purchase practices (e.g. driving for shopping purposes) or stock
management practices (waste). A dual characterisation: the environment and food styles It was long believed that to change behaviour the consumer had to be educated, informed and made more aware. This model has been called into question with new approaches being tested in several disciplines that incorporate other factors. The proposed work will be based on theories of practice. It seeks to add to the body of work in the field of sustainable consumption theorized by Warde (2015) who emphasized the triple social, material and cognitive dimensions of practices and theories of installation by Saadi Lahlou, a psycho-‐sociologist at the London School of Economics. Lahlou defines installations as something that facilitates certain practices, guides action and are distributed in physical space in the form of material objects, in mental space in the form of representation and in social space through forms of institutions. Based on this theorization, the project aims to characterize the foodscape of residential neighbourhoods and areas of activity. This will be based on both objective data (location surveys, statistics and mapping) and the representation and the perceptions of neighbourhood residents by combining surveys, interviews and focus group discussions, as well as participatory observations (eg accompanying shopping trips). The research will focus on food supply areas and on the food procurement practices, e.g. where, how people shop, and how domestic management shapes the foodstyle.
The analysis framework provides a starting point to understand the fragmentation of city-‐dwellers’ representations and practices from a number of standpoints. The identification of food practices will focus on procurement practices, waste management practices and practices for managing the risk of wasting resources. As Montpellier is located in the second poorest area in France, the project will also focus on food security and the foodscapes of different populations including solidarity practices based on a typology of forms of solidarity. The characteristics of the people interviewed will relate to their socio-‐economic status (for example, profession, income level, household size, age, sex) and indicators of their relationship with agriculture (for example, farmers’ children, part-‐time gardeners, interest in agricultural issues). Data analysis will facilitate comparisons between neighbourhoods and within the individual neighbourhoods. The indicators will be defined in conjunction with communities so they will be useful for policy objectives.
Overview of People’s Monitoring for the Right to Food & Nutrition Project FIAN and the Global Network for the right to Food & Nutrition Molly Anderson, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Food Studies, Middlebury College Dr. Anderson presented on the FIAN (international human rights organization (http://www.fian.org) effort to advocate for the realization of the right to adequate
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food and nutrition (RtFN) through a new global monitoring project. The project, ‘People’s Monitoring of the Right to Food and Nutrition’, has as its vision: That food Sovereignty and RTFN monitoring is consistently used by actors at all levels as an instrument that results in positive changes in the realization of the RTFN and for the identification of strategic paths that take us into a new society where peoples’ food sovereignty and RTFN in the context of all human rights are fully realized. Food Sovereignty and RTFN monitoring information is used and reclaimed, but also produced, interpreted and transformed into action by people and their representatives. This project is emerging from a desire to collect and report data that includes and reflects input from front-‐line people in CSOs and reflects resistance to a technocratic approach. Mission: Create a people-‐oriented collaborative and flexible process to produce, analyze, disseminate and communicate holistic and political information on the pre-‐conditions for food sovereignty and the right to food and nutrition for the purposes of advocacy, action planning and accountability. This project will compile indicators and support documents for monitoring pre-‐conditions for food sovereignty and the right to food and nutrition in 6 areas:
• Democratic political participation • Women’s rights • Access to and control over natural resources by communities and producers • Right to decent work • Support for most at-‐risk populations / discrimination • Checks on corporate control of the food system
For each thematic area or goal, the project will select the best available indicators of structure (e.g., whether a legal, "soft law" or multi-‐actor framework exists to support this goal); process (whether people are able to use this structural framework to seek recourse to human rights violations and abuses); and outcomes (effects on the ground of the structure and process). The monitoring tool will have 3 sets of outputs, which will be developed progressively and implemented incrementally:
1. Core indicators – Quantitative, supplemented with Voices of the Hungry (http://www.fao.org/in-‐action/voices-‐of-‐the-‐hungry/en/#.V89vepMrI6g) indicators from FAO showing food insecurity at the country level. Based on the most recent report, about 1 in 3 people are food insecure with more than 50% of people in some countries.
2. Peoples’ testimonies from communities: Impacts of conditions related to food insecurity and human rights implementation at the individual and community level
3. Materials and methods tools for monitoring /capacity development: o Training on how to use monitoring information for advocacy
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o Creating conditions and providing methodological support for greater community involvement and for the clear identification of Food Sovereignty and RTFN issues
o Mutual capacity strengthening in Food Sovereignty and RTFN monitoring for advocacy, action and accountability among the country-‐level Initiative teams, social movements and peoples' organizations, and communities
The project will make maximum use of validated secondary data and interpret such data applying a human rights-‐based approach. It is anticipated that project outputs will be particularly useful to social movements and grassroots organizations at the national and local or community level. The project team members hope that this work will help to build convergence of social movements and grassroots organizations across sectors and scales. Information by country (including other human rights reports) will be posted on the website of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition. It is hoped that the first iteration will include 20 countries and be available in fall of 2016, after the launch in October of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch. Developing and Piloting Urban Agriculture Indicators in Toronto James Kuhns, Co-‐Coordinator, Toronto Urban Growers (TUG) Toronto Urban Growers (TUG) is working with Toronto Public Health to develop and pilot indicators to measure the health, social, economic and ecological impacts of urban agriculture (UA). In interviews with local stakeholders (including funders and decision-‐makers), Public Health heard that local data is important for building a case for support for UA initiatives. Developing indicators that could be used throughout the city was deemed to be necessary in order to advocate for more UA and bring about positive change. A literature review was conducted that showed surprisingly little systematic work on developing indicators and measuring the various dimensions of urban agriculture. Rather many cities, NGOs, or growing projects will map and collect data on certain aspects. Of the existing literature, probably the best known and referred to work is Five Borough Farm: Seeding the Future of Urban Agriculture in New York City. The Toronto Region Conservation Authority’s Socioeconomic Metrics project, being led by Gladki Planning Associates also provided valuable insights (http://www.gladkiplanning.com/2016/02/691/)
The criteria for indicator selection mostly followed the SMART approach (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound). Additionally, cost and a desire to ensure the indicators were minimally invasive to growers and community members were included. The question of audience and users of the indicators was considered. Transmitter audiences, those who already understand the benefits of UA, will use the indicators to make the case for UA in the course of their work or improve their practices as a result of using indicators. Government bodies dealing with UA and NGOs would fall into this category. It is also hoped that receptor audiences, those who don’t have
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much awareness of the impacts of UA, will better understand the benefits of UA or realize the challenges UA practitioners face, and will demonstrate more supportive attitudes and behaviour. For example, a foundation would be a receptor audience. Quantitative and qualitative indicators will give them a deeper understanding of the challenges and potential of UA and may result in more funding being awarded to urban agriculture initiatives.
TUG facilitated a roundtable and conducted one-‐on-‐one interviews to consult with UA practitioners and people who are working on indicator development to gain their feedback on a set of draft indicators and measurements. Participants included growers, garden coordinators, social justice advocates, academia, health sector and NGO and city staff. The meeting helped shape the indicators and measurements for field-‐testing. Participants also shared what measurements and statistics they are currently collecting.
As we are not able to actually collect the data without first undergoing an ethics review with the City, we have asked a group of key informants to pre-‐test the measures and give us comments on their ability to provide the information requested and the clarity of the questions. With further refinement, we hope that the indicators can be replicated across the Greater Golden Horseshoe to advance the awareness of the many positive impacts of UA.