The Urgent Role of Urban Agriculture and Food Systems Planning in the Global South

What can US urban agriculture (UA) planners and scholars learn from the Global South? For many urban growers in low and middle income countries, UA is a lifeline – a vital source of their family’s food and income security – in a way not often experienced in the US. UA also plays an important role in enhancing the environmental sustainability of some city regions. In the name of “modernization” and development, however, many Global South governments actively resist UA, while others are encouraging the rapid growth of supermarkets and the restriction of informal food markets, potentially undoing any positive impacts of UA on urban food security and poverty. Food policy initiatives that have emerged to intervene in urban food systems holistically, however, could help to ensure that urban food systems are simultaneously equitable, health-promoting and sustainable. Despite the more extreme circumstances in which UA is often practiced in the Global South, urban planning scholars and practitioners in the US can draw a number of lessons about the benefits of intentionally scaling up UA, the wider lens that could be applied to address urban food system inequities, and further research that could enhance understanding about the process and impact of UA expansion.