Food for All: Policy Linking Food Insecurity and Farmers' Livelihoods
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Summary
This case focuses on food systems planning in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. It highlights the Direct from the Countryside program, a decades long project that attempts to improve urban food access for vulnerable populations and small-farmer livelihoods in a rapidly urbanizing region. Placing themselves in the shoes of the city’s Municipal Food Security Secretariat, students explore the complicated nature of program planning when working across municipal jurisdictions and competing short- and long-term program goals.
Learning Objectives
Realize the threat that rapid urbanization—whether informally or formally supported by city officials – poses for some of the most productive farmland (and associated food production and farmer livelihoods) at the peri-urban edges of cities.
Appreciate the need for regional planning and inter-municipal cooperation for addressing planning problems that cross jurisdictional boundaries.
Consider how to align program goals in disparate areas (economic, social, health and safety, food access, and environmental impact).
Recognize the tradeoffs between upfront project investments and long-term costs, as well as the impacts this can have on program goals.
Understand the potential social, technical, and political implications of beginning with a smaller, pilot program versus launching a larger program all at once – i.e., pilots can lead to lock-in to a preliminary version, with little ability to expand or make adjustments, but broader implementation can lead to multiple untested issues.
Learn to expect unintended consequences of policies and programs.
Case Materials
Instructor Version
Student Version
PowerPoint Presentation
Suggested Readings
Chappell, J. (2018). Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press. Read the book summary
Chappell, M. and L. LaValle. (2011). Food security and biodiversity: Can we have both? An agroecological analysis. Agriculture and Human Values, 28: 3-26. Read the abstract
Clancy, K. and K. Ruhf. (2010). Is local enough? Some arguments for regional food systems. Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm and Resource Issues. Download the full paper
Popkin, B. (2014). Nutrition, agriculture and the global food system in low and middle income countries. Food Policy, 47: 91-96. Read the abstract
Satterthwaite, D., McGranahan, G. and C. Tacoli. (2010). Urbanization and its implications for food and farming. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 365: 2809-2820. Download the full paper
Zezza, A. and L. Tasciotti. (2010) Urban agriculture, poverty, and food security: Empirical evidence from a sample of developing countries. Food Policy, 35, 265-273, 2010. Read the abstract
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