For all you executives who are reading this plus all you who want to read a few pages and be done—an executive summary:

 

With the support of the Circumnavigators Club of Chicago and Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, I spent twelve weeks during the summer of 2017 researching how local food systems (LFS) can best foster urban food security. I traveled to Kampala, Uganda; Milan, Italy; Budapest, Hungary; Tokyo, Japan; Singapore, Singapore; and Brisbane, Australia to gain a global perspective on the topic.

 

Through my research, I sought to answer the following questions: How do LFS contribute to urban residents’ food security? How can LFS maintain residents’ food security during sociopolitical, economic, and environmental shocks? How can LFS that foster food security remain a sustainable fixture in urban communities? In each city, I focused my research on one type local food organization or network: community gardens, urban farms, or consumer purchasing groups. In total, I interviewed over 75 policymakers, researchers, local food organization leaders, and local food organization participants. I also conducted participant-observation research at urban farms, community gardens, consumer cooperative meetings, farmers’ markets, and agricultural resource centers.

 

In each city I visited, unique narratives speak to the environmental and social benefits of LFS, as well as the challenges that private, nonprofit, and public-sector stakeholders must overcome to enact and sustain efficient and meaningful LFS. Each city has its success stories. In Kampala, government-sponsored urban farming directly contributes to the city’s food security by providing new income and food sources to urban residents. In Milan, Solidarity Purchase Groups (GAS) have reshaped and secured Milanese LFS, which meet high standards of environmental and social justice. In Budapest, community garden development supports residents’ shifting views towards a greater acceptance of sharing economies, civil society, and ultimately a more sustainable food system, which urban residents actively inform. In Tokyo, the rise of online local food networks illustrates a potential alternative to niche local food networks, which may increase the financial accessibility and security of LFS to consumers and producers, respectively. In Singapore, education- and community development-focused farms contribute to consumers’ greater agricultural awareness and increase Singapore’s food self-sufficiency. And in Australia, community gardens and an online local food network may provide solutions to challenges faced by resource-constrained, community-based local food organizations in other cities.

 

Nevertheless, each organization and local food network I studied also faces geographical, financial, cultural, and political barriers towards its efficient development and maximum impact. Common challenges of nonprofit and for-profit organizations across the globe include securing land, securing participants/customers, keeping costs low, adhering to government regulation, retaining motivated volunteers, maintaining an effective management structure, and successfully collaborating with the government/community members/nonprofit organizations/land owners. Furthermore, local food participants’ and organizers’ misconceptions about what constitutes socially and environmentally sustainable food systems pose another threat to the efficient development of LFS. Other similarities between LFS in different cities revealed the ambiguity as to what extent policy has impacted local food movements, the questionable sustainability of consumer cooperatives over time, and the lack of any ideal community garden management structure. Ultimately, the best-case practices and challenges of local food organizations worldwide demonstrate that there is no single best approach to create an LFS that contributes to the well-being of urban residents and persists in face of sociopolitical, economic, and environmental change; nevertheless, narratives from cities around the world provide key insights into how to do so successfully.

 

Studying LFS in Kampala, Milan, Budapest, Tokyo, Singapore, and Brisbane confirmed my hypothesis that LFS in urban areas have the potential to enhance urban residents’ quality of life while mitigating the environmental and social harm caused by longer food supply chains—if these organizations are developed strategically and use available financial, land, and human resources efficiently. Robust domestic agricultural production, which may be supported by consumer cooperatives or take place at urban farms, may secure cities’ food security in case economic, environmental, or sociopolitical shocks change the price, quality, or quantity of regionally or internationally imported food. Furthermore, smaller scale LFS, such as community gardens and urban farms that prioritize sociopolitical and environmental objectives, also have key food security benefits. Urban residents’ engagement in LFS increases their agricultural and nutritional knowledge, emotional connection to their food sources, and local food purchases. Increased consumer demand for local food thereby causes a positive feedback loop, helping sustain city-wide LFS and increasing the city’s food security over time.