The issue of local food is one of the most commonly and enthusiastically embraced of all the issues around localisation. A particular challenge is the issue of food sovereignty for urban areas, given that by 2030 an estimated 60 percent of all people will live in cities (FAO, 2009). From British allotment gardening, to community supported agriculture, to Cuban urban agriculture, to Japanese rooftop gardens – there are more and more examples of intra-urban and peri-urban areas being transformed into productive food-growing land.

Producing food locally, even in an urban environment means short transport routes, less processing and packaging. In the U.S., these parts of the value chain consume more than a third of all energy used for food production. Limiting these activities can substantially reduce the carbon footprint of each meal. In addition, urban food policies encourage consumption of nutritious food, provide food security and sovereignty. Members of the community can be become involved. Jobs and occupation, and income opportunities are created. Local agriculture projects create solidarity and purpose among the communities, sustaining morale and help building community pride.

To set up an urban agriculture programme, a framework of policies is needed. First, people should be enabled to gain access and usufruct ownership of land to be used for agriculture purposes. Depending on the social structures of the region, land should be leased for free or for a low rent. The lease of land must be organised and monitored by the municipal government, encouraging a wide range of fruits, vegetables and spices to be cultivated in the area. The gardeners and farmers can work on their own or establish production cooperatives. In addition, gardeners and farmers can be organized in loose associations to facilitate the dissemination of information and technical knowledge among themselves, and to exchange seeds and to share tools..

Government should set up information centers. These could sell agricultural supplies to the public that would otherwise be difficult to obtain, such as vegetable and medicinal seeds and seedlings, biological pesticides, organic fertilizer and tools. For sale of the produce, spaces at farmer markets should be provided for subsidised rent. If necessary, municipalities have to organise markets or other sale opportunities. Also, on-site sale should be encouraged. Finally, it must be ensured that produce is sold at prices that are affordable to the local community. This could be made a condition for accepting a farmer to participate in an urban agriculture programme. Helpful assistance can be provided by NGOs, and organizations such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which supports urban agriculture in its ‘Food in the City’ programme.

Case study: Cuba

Agriculture can play an important role as a carbon sink, storing carbon in the soil and in plant matter, and by efficiently managing the world’s resources of water, land and biodiversity. Until now, the main thrust to manage greenhouse gases by land use has been to increase CO2 sequestration by trees, plants and crops. But there is also considerable potential for sequestering carbon below ground in soils, deposited as dead plant material or in inorganic forms. The 4th IPCC Assessment Report found that 89 per cent of agriculture’s technical mitigation potential lies in enhancing soil carbon sinks through better crop- and grazing land management, increase of organic matter in degraded soils, and by use of carbon-neutral bio-energy. To make best use of this potential the WFC proposes to support organic farming solutions.

In addition to measures for enriching farmland and pastures with ‘conventional’ organic matter, a potentially important additional option is available in the form of ‘biochar’. As shown, packaging and transportation is responsible for more than one fifth of carbon emissions in  the food sector. A large share of these emissions could be avoided with local food. Moreover, localisation of the food industry creates local jobs and business opportunities. Hence the WFC presents policy concepts to  support locally produced food through labelling or state donations. Under the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ (CDM), developing countries could participate in global agreements and access needed funds to introduce less harmful technologies into their economic development. The successor to Kyoto should extend CDM to bio-sequestration projects. Increasing soil carbon should become central to future land use policies. To find out more about low-carbon agriculture and food policy concepts go to

•  Organic farming solutions
•  Sustainable biochar
•  Support for local food
•  Carbon labelling
•  International policies