Reclaiming Food Insecurity As a Critical Domain in European Urban Food Policies: Lessons from Public and Community-Based Initiatives

Cities are at the forefront of current socio-ecological challenges. Despite key advancements, such as the development of hundreds of urban food policies across the globe, recent evidence shows increasing numbers of food insecure people in urban areas, rising inequalities and further environmental degradation affecting both low and high-income countries. However, food insecurity remains low in the political agendas of European cities and narrow conceptualisations of the phenomenon limit effective interventions that combine ensuring availability and access to food with sustainability and empowerment outcomes.

This paper aims to address this gap by studying current mechanisms to address urban food insecurity in European cities, using Barcelona as a case study. For that purpose, we mapped food and nutrition insecurity initiatives and mobilised a socio-ecological perspective built on the HLPE six-dimensional framework of food and nutrition insecurity to analyse them, mainly Availability, Access, Utilisation, Stability, Agency, and Sustainability. The analysis showcases a wide number of initiatives and a diversity of approaches to tackle urban food insecurity. Among them, there are initiatives that incorporate elements of food justice, political ecology, and community-based efforts alongside considerations of sustainability and resilience, addressing not only environmental challenges but also economic and public health issues. These food innovations with higher socio-ecological impacts should warrant prioritisation in policies and funding schemes. Furthermore, their capacity to address multiple urban challenges provides opportunities to reinforce adopting a food-sensitive perspective in urban policies, reinforcing multisectoral and long-term food governance interventions in cities.