Cities are increasingly driving global food consumption and have a major influence on our food systems. Although there is growing awareness of their role in driving sustainable changes, many cities lack comprehensive food system policies developed on the basis of widespread citizen engagement and multidisciplinary research. The Healthy Food Neighbourhood project implemented from 2021 to 2023 with support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC Canada) sought to understand some of the major food challenges facing metropolitan cities such as Lima (Peru) and Quito (Ecuador), namely unsustainable supply chains and food insecurity.
Led by Rikolto, the project was implemented in consortium with Ecosad and Funsad to promote multi-stakeholder spaces to address food security challenges and to build a systemic understanding of healthy food production and consumption through research and action, in both cities.
We released over 25 studies and publications with findings that advocate for more sustainable food systems in Lima and Quito’s multi-stakeholder spaces and platforms.
The Metropolitan Area of Lima in Peru, with a population of over 9 million, is heavily dependent on food imports, producing less than 1% of the food consumed and 3% of the vegetables purchased. The city is also home to 49% of the country’s markets (2,215 in total), many of which face concerns about agrochemical contamination of food. Farming areas along the river in the Lurin and Chillon valleys have been shrinking over the last decade because of real estate pressure and low profits for farmers. In addition, the seasonality of the crops prompts producers to opt for large-scale production to meet Lima’s demand, rather than agroecological practices that are part of the differentiated value of their food supply.
In Quito about 95% of the food consumed in the city comes from outside its borders. In addition, the city has stopped relying on food produced in its immediate rural area, weakening its resilience to climate shocks and to the threat posed by the volcanoes surrounding the city. COVID-19 exposed the fragility of their urban food systems.
The core hypothesis of the project is that to improve food availability and access in cities over time, planning needs to be approached at multiple scales, starting from the neighbourhood level.
Food neighbourhoods are territories made up of a group of households, delimited by the distance people can walk to buy healthy and affordable food, whether at a market, an agroecological fair, a bodega or any other place where they can acquire food. During the pandemic, traditional food markets and wholesale markets were closed, as were the bioferias (organic markets) that operated in parks and squares in Quito and Lima. The public response focused on delivering food baskets and snacks to vulnerable people, but these initiatives proved to be inefficient and sometimes involved allegations of corruption.
In neighbourhoods, which are also spaces of social action and collective struggle, solidarity-based responses to food insecurity and economic inequality flourished. The communitarian and local urban gardens (Quito) and community kitchens (Lima) initiatives have mitigated the risk of food insecurity by providing healthy and local food to the most vulnerable. Their contribution begs the question: why did people go hungry if food was available?
To answer this question, we conducted in-depth research that included observation practices, data collection from markets and urban gardens, consumer surveys and a mapping of food responses implemented by communities to cope with food uncertainty during the pandemic.
The studies showed that public policies implemented to address the food emergency fell short in ensuring the right to food in the neighbourhoods and neglected community experiences that helped reduce food insecurity and hunger. Small-scale solutions are often overlooked when working at the municipal or national level. Urban gardens, though small and geared towards production for personal use, can form micro-food networks that build resilience in times of crisis by providing healthy food to neighbours who did not receive government support. The findings were shared with policymakers and other stakeholders to feed into the formulation of public food policies.
In the first years of the project, we contributed to spaces such as the Agrifood Pact of Quito (PAQ), the Lima Food Security Roundtable, the Multi-stakeholder Platforms to Promote Healthy Food Systems in the Lurin and Chillon river valleys and the Lima Food System Council (Consial). These multistakeholder platforms are essential for improving the governance of food systems, but they were not considered by authorities in either city in their food response during the pandemic.
Rikolto and its partners advocated in favour of broadening the vision of the platform members, promoting the sharing of experience with other Latin American cities, strengthening the capacity of the authorities, promoting new legal frameworks and monitoring the implementation of municipal food policies. In both cities, changes in municipal leadership led to delays in several processes, which are now being addressed with the support of multi-stakeholder platforms and agroecological collectives.
In 2022, thanks to the advocacy efforts of CAP and Ecosad, with the support of Rikolto, an ordinance for food recovery in food markets in the Lima metropolitan area was approved by the Metropolitan Council. Our local partners and allied multi-stakeholder platforms accompanied its technical development, a cornerstone in the creation of the subsequent municipal programme, Lima Recovers and Feeds. The programme promotes the collection and recovery of fresh agricultural and aquaculture food in wholesale and food markets.
In Quito, we supported the PAQ in developing a roadmap to be implemented in 2023 and 2024. In this space, we advocated for a municipal ordinance to promote urban agriculture and another to promote a food system council, both of which were debated before the end of the government’s term but not approved. By the end of the project, the new city council took up the ordinance proposal and proposed a new objective to reduce hunger in the metropolitan area of Quito, defining the regulatory framework for the promotion of healthy food neighbourhoods (Ordinance for Healthy Food Neighbourhoods). The text is being discussed at the time of writing this article and has already been formally presented at public meetings.
What is consumed by the citizens living in our cities? Are the products safe? These were the main questions behind the first Citizen Monitoring of Pesticides in Food, led by Ecosad, Red de Agricultura Ecológica del Perú (RAE Perú) and Consorcio Agroecológico Peruano (CAP), and supported by Rikolto as part of the Healthy Food Neighbourhoods Project. This initiative aimed to address concerns regarding food safety in urban areas by gathering evidence to urge local authorities to act and raise consumer awareness about food quality. It also sought to catalyse a citizens’ movement advocating for access to healthy and nutritious food.
The current food monitoring system lacks sufficient control mechanisms for food safety, especially in contrast to the standards applied to export products where the state plays a crucial role as a guarantor. The first citizen monitoring of agrochemicals in fruit and vegetables in supermarkets in Lima and Callao, which analysed food from six of the largest supermarkets in Peru (Metro, Tottus, Wong, Plaza Vea, Vivanda and Minka), revealed that some food products contained pesticides above the maximum level allowed by local health regulations. The results were the subject of an intense media campaign. A second round of monitoring included samples from local markets in other regions of Peru. The project supported its allies in organising public events to discuss the study’s findings with government institutions and civil society in cities such as Arequipa, Cusco, Áncash and Huánuco.
The partnership with IDRC allowed us to highlight the value of active research and the need to generate data and new knowledge for more adaptive management of our food systems for civil society action, and to stimulate discussions in multi-stakeholder food governance spaces in Quito and Lima.
The pandemic demonstrated that the initiatives of civil society organisations in Lima and Quito were instrumental in addressing food insecurity in a time of crisis, showing the need to strengthen community action and to connect different initiatives to create a broad movement to promote affordable healthier diets in cities.
Although this collective response was an effective strategy for alleviating food insecurity at a time of crisis, it is not sufficient to eradicate the problem due to its scale and limited public support. The pandemic had a particularly detrimental impact on women, including migrants, leaders of community kitchens and producers. While their workloads increased as they took on additional responsibilities, their incomes were negatively affected.
The findings of the project opened up new discussions on food planning in both cities, highlighting the need for a more systemic understanding of agrifood systems, a careful analysis of the food situation of migrants and the use of public space to increase the accessibility of healthy food. While transforming food systems is necessarily a collaborative endeavour, the project demonstrated the essential role of public authorities in guaranteeing the right to food. It also provided guidance on the entry points they can take to make this a reality at neighbourhood level.
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