Reading list
Preparatory reading
Compulsory
This report aims to motivate city officials and their technical teams, urban planners and related professionals to view food as central to a truly systemic approach, and to contribute to the understanding of the different factors involved in the inclusion of food in all urban planning efforts. The book presents cases and examples from all over the world. The introduction highlights serious challenges that planners need to address. We advise to read Chapter 1 Food and urban planning The missing link, page 18 - 32.
- FAO Report : "Integrating food into urban planning“ page 18 - 32.
- IPES-food: From Plate to Planet: How local governments are driving action on climate change through food summary
Background information
Hungry Cities by Carolyn Steel video
If you want to get familiar with methods for collaborative goal setting, participatory learning, and research you can review the following.
The nominal group technique approach is a method for collaborative working on ideas and proposals
PALAR methodology - the method for participatory learning and research
Short PowerPoint explaining the Nominal Group Technique, a method for collaborative goal setting, defining values for groups, collaborative action planning.
Reading for phase 1 Exploring the field of play
Compulsory reading
Tornaghi, Chiara. (2016). Urban Agriculture in the Food‐Disabling City: (Re)defining Urban Food Justice, Reimagining a Politics of Empowerment. Antipode. 49. 10.1111/anti.12291. This article helps participants understand urban food justice issues and introduces the concept a politics of empowerment. Underlines the importance for reflecting on personal values and competencies and addressing inequalities within food systems.
Deh-Tor, C.M. 2021. Food as an urban question, and the foundations of a reproductive, agroecological, urbanism, Chapter 1 in: Tornaghi, Ch. and Dehaene, M. 2021. Resourcing an Agroecological Urbanism: Political, Transformational and Territorial Dimensions.
This chapter explores the foundations of a reproductive, agroecological urbanism, providing theoretical insights into sustainable food planning. It helps participants understand the role of agroecology in urban planning.
IPES-Food, 2021. A long food movement. Addresses global challenges and opportunities for transforming food systems towards sustainability. This comprehensive report emphasizes the urgent need to overhaul current food systems to address pressing issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, inequality, and public health concerns. It outlines a vision for a sustainable food future, where long-term planning and grassroots movements play key roles.
Background reading
Longer presentation on PALAR with criteria and activities. Important for engaging local communities through participatory problem-solving techniques. This reading supports learning objectives related to participatory learning, research methods, and collaborative goal setting.
Triboi, R. 2022 AESOP4FOOD presentation on Living Labs. Explains how to implement living labs for participatory research and innovation and helps participants understand their role in food systems transformation and how to engage communities and stakeholders effectively.
Nasr, J.and M. Potteiger. Spaces, Systems, and Infrastructures: From Founding Visions to Emerging Approaches for the Productive Urban Landscape provides insights into the design and infrastructure of urban food systems. It supports understanding the spatial dimensions of food systems and the role of planners in creating productive urban landscapes.
FAO. 2019. FAO framework for the Urban Food Agenda. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca3151en Helps participants understand the policy context and frameworks that guide urban food systems, aligning with understanding sustainable food planning concepts.
IDS & IPES-Food, 2022. Agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and nature-based solutions: Competing framings of food system sustainability in global policy and funding spaces. offers a nuanced examination of the various approaches to achieving sustainable food systems by exploring the complex landscape of global policy and funding. The report underscores the distinctions and overlaps between agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and nature-based solutions, highlighting how these frameworks are represented and supported in international discourse.
Vaarst, Mette, Arthur Getz Escudero, M. Jahi Chappell, Catherine Brinkley, Ravic Nijbroek, Nilson A.M. Arraes, Lise Andreasen, Andreas Gattinger, Gustavo Fonseca De Almeida, Deborah Bossio & Niels Halberg (2018) Exploring the concept of agroecological food systems in a city-region context, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 42:6, 686-711, DOI: 10.1080/21683565.2017.1365321. Rural-urban food systems are a relevant and challenging entry point that provides opportunities for learning how food systems can be shaped for significant positive change. It explains that social organisation, community building, common learning, and knowledge creation are crucial for agroecological contextualised food systems, which need support from appropriate governing and institutional structures.
- supports analyzing specific food initiatives and engaging local communities, aligning with understanding local and regional settings of food systems and developing collaborative techniques.
- focuses on fostering sustainable food systems by supporting projects that improve access to healthy, affordable food, enhance food security, and build resilient local economies.
Website with the building blocks of an Agroecological Urbanism. outlines essential strategies for integrating agroecological principles into urban environments. It explores concepts like
- Productive Housing Estates, which combine residential areas with food-growing spaces to ensure the right to grow and the right to shelter.
- Farming the Fragmented Land utilizes leftover urban and peri-urban spaces for agriculture, promoting sustainable local food production.
- Agroecological Parks protect and enhance urban farmland,
- Healthy Soil Scape focuses on maintaining soil health for resilient food systems.
- Landed Community Kitchens and Territorial Food Hubs connect agroecological movements with community food initiatives, fostering local resource management and food justice
Reading for phase 2 Food mapping: analysing your local foodscape
Compulsory reading
FAO Report : "Integrating food into urban planning" page 264 – 275 (Food asset mapping in Toronto and Greater Golden Horseshoe region, by Lauren Baker). This chapter explains the concept of food assets (food infrastructure that maintains food-secure communities and regions) and how this information can be seized in the planning process, providing a base line to understand, promote, and strengthen the regional food system, to inform decision-making; and plan for resilience.
Bortoletti, M., and J. Lomax. (2019).Collaborative framework for food systems transformation."A multistakeholder pathway for sustainable food systems. ISBN (2019): 978-92. United Nations Environment Programme, https://www.oneplanetnetwork.org/knowledge-centre/resources/collaborative-framework-food-systems-transformation-multi-stakeholder. Presents a coherent framework about how different stakeholders can help implement policies and support governments in advancing a systemic transformation.
Recommended reading
Bohn, K., & Tomkins, M. (Eds.). (2024). Urban Food Mapping: Making Visible the Edible City. Taylor & Francis. Presents and compares maps that make visible the many stakeholders, sites, activities, networks and products that are (or could be) part of the process where food is provided in sufficient quantity and quality as a contributor to the wellbeing of all. The book offers a wide reflection on mapping the feeding of cities and the proposals for their inclusive and sustainable development.
Corcoran, M. P. 2021. Beyond 'food apartheid': Civil society and the politicization of hunger in New Haven, Connecticut. In: Urban Agric Region Food Syst. 2021;6:e20013. https://doi.org/10.1002/uar2.20013. Sharp approach to understanding if civil society actors can play a meaningful role in reshaping the urban food system in the context of potentially contradictory aims and asymmetries of power. It presents radical grassroots organizing aimed at transcending systemic inequities
FAO (2018) City Region Food System Toolkit. Assessing and planning sustainable city region food systems (Rapid Scan Module). RUAF and Wilfrid Laurier University, (https://www.fao.org/urban-food-actions/resources/resources-detail/en/c/1133524/). Describes how to build a general picture of the CRFS, and to enable identification of some initial priority areas where action may be taken to increase sustainability and build resilience, and where more, in-depth information is required.
FAO (2019), Tool for agroecology performance evaluation process of development and guidelines for applications. Chapter 3. https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/ca7407en/ comprehensive tool that aims to measure the multi-dimensional performance of agroecological systems across the different dimensions of sustainability. Ir provides good hints about the elements to take into account when mapping that is useful for further assessment.
Simón-Rojo, M (2021). Powering transformative practices against food poverty with urban planning. Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems. (https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/uar2.20021). Provides an applied example of how to combine the mapping of spaces related to food systems with the mapping of the social complexity and key actors. The combined analysis of both allows for the definition of right-to-food strategies. They activate the collective imagination of new ways of connecting needs and - often unnoticed - resources.
Further reading
Countryside Charity (CPRE – UK) https://www.cpre.org.uk/resources/mapping-local-food-webs-toolkit-2/. Very basic toolkit to know more about the way food is produced, supplied, sold, and consumed by mapping the local food web which describes the links between local food producers, retailers, and consumers.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. (2011) Community-Based Food System Assessment and Planning - Facilitator's Guidebook, publication 3108-9029.- please read the introduction and then continue until page 18. 2011-community-based-food-system-assessment-and-action-planning-facilitator-guidebook.pdf (communityfoodstrategies.org). Explains a food system assessment and planning process that prioritizes community engagement, by using the "Community Capitals Framework" that includes natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial and built capital.
Reading for phase 3 Objectives: Collaborative goals and vision
Compulsory reading
FAO/RUAF – A Vision for City Region Food Systems – Building Sustainable and Resilient City Regions.
website of FAO on City Regions Food Systems
Recommended reading
UN Habitat, 2012: Visioning as a Participatory Planning Tool https://issuu.com/unhabitat/docs/visioning_as_participatory_planning_tool
Arnstein, Sherry R. 1969. ʺA Ladder of Citizen Participationʺ, Journal of American Institute of Planners, n°35/4.
Cohen, N., R.T. Ilieva, « Expanding the boundaries of food policy: The turn to equity in New York City », Food Policy, vol. 103, 2021.
IPES-Food, « What makes urban food policy happen – Insights from five case studies », June 2017.
Background reading
Alessandra Manganelli (2020): Realising local food policies: a comparison between Toronto and the Brussels-Capital Region’s stories through the lenses of reflexivity and colearning, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning
Van de Griend, J., Duncan, J., & Wiskerke, J. (2019). How Civil Servants Frame Participation: Balancing Municipal Responsibility With Citizen Initiative in Ede’s Food Policy. Politics and Governance, 7(4), 59-67
Candel, Jeroen J.L. (2019): What’s on the menu? A global assessment of MUFPP signatory cities’ food strategies, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
Sonnino, R. Tegoni, C. De Cunto, A. , (2019) The challenge of systemic food change: Insights from cities, Cities, Vol. 85, pp. 110-116
Landert, J.; Schader, C.; Moschitz, H.; Stolze, M. A Holistic Sustainability Assessment Method for Urban Food System Governance. Sustainability 2017, 9, 490
RUAF, Urban Agriculture Magazin no. 36, Food Policy Councils.
Reading for phase 4 Strategy and interventions
Mette Vaarst, Arthur Getz Escudero, M. Jahi Chappell, Catherine Brinkley, Ravic Nijbroek, Nilson A.M. Arraes, Lise Andreasen, Andreas Gattinger, Gustavo Fonseca De Almeida, Deborah Bossio & Niels Halberg (2018) Exploring the concept of agroecological food systems in a city-region context, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 42:6, 686-711
Compulsory reading
Scoones et al. (2015) The politics of Green Transformation (Chapter 1). Oxon/New York: Routledge. Only Chapter 1 is compulsory reading: page 1 - 24.
Wissmann, A et.al, The Policy Environment for Sustainable City Region Food Systems, 2022.
Background reading
Reference on prototyping on Publicatie Open Ruimte Platform This booklet in Dutch refers to strategy and prototyping, it presents 10 years of work within the ‘open space platform’ in Flandres. The publication is in Dutch but is visually appealing. Some of the prototyping methodologies have also been tested in the context of the Brabantstad Atelier of the Rotterdam Biennale. This publication is available in English.
This is the online exhibition and resource curated by Sebastien Marot. It consists of 42 panels arranged in 6 thematic lines of thinking. They compose an ideology, i.e. a jurisprudence of ideas, moments and figures which one might bear in mind when considering the nexus of agriculture and architecture, and its evolution.
David Holmgren’s text “Descent scenarios” chapter 4 of Future Scenario (2008)
Reading for phase 5 Evaluation & monitoring
Compulsory reading
Background reading
The Rainbow Framework can help you plan an M&E activity by prompting you to think about each of these tasks in turn, and select a combination of methods and processes that cover all tasks involved. You might also choose an approach, which is a pre-packaged combination of methods.
The range of tasks are organised into seven colour-coded clusters that aim to make it easy for you to find what you need: Manage, Define, Frame, Describe, Understand Causes, Synthesise, and Report & Support Use.