In partnership with Eurocities, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact organised the next European Regional Forum in Bordeaux on 27-29 September 2023. With the title “Good food for all“, the Forum will focus on how cities can foster food justice and ensure access to healthy, local and quality food for all. Co-hosted by the City and Metropole of Bordeaux, the meeting explored urban policies and experimentation to respond to immediate food emergencies while structurally transforming the local food system for greater resilience, sustainability, and fairness for consumers and producers. In light of the Sustainable Food Systems Framework Law being recently dropped from the Commission’s programme, the learning points from this meeting are all the more relevant.
Successive crises have increased the demand for food aid and drawn attention to wider inequalities in access to healthy and sustainable food. Food and diet inequalities are rooted in structural biases already affecting people with lower income, living in deprived areas, from ethnic minority background, disabled or from other vulnerable groups. Imbalances in food access contribute to overall health disparities.
The food justice approach aims to better understand how socio-economic, cultural, gender and class disparities create inequalities in access to and participation in the various dimensions of the food system.
Urban policies tackling food justice ensure nutritious, affordable, and culturally-appropriate food for all. They also promote fair remuneration for producers and safeguard the rights of agricultural and food processing workers. They empower local stakeholders and communities to have control over the production and distribution of food. They increase access to healthy products by making groceries more obtainable through mainstream retail channels and establishing alternative systems of food provision.
Many cities are taking action by triggering local and urban production, delivering food aid solutions and engaging and empowering vulnerable groups in local governance schemes. For example, Bordeaux will showcase how the metropolitan city addresses the issue of healthy and sustainable quality food for all as part of its metropolitan food project.
