Urbal

Developing and testing a participatory method to identify the possible impacts of urban innovations on the sustainability of food systems.

The sustainability of food systems involves multiple dimensions and its comprehensive assessment should incorporate dozens of indicators on the environment, health and nutrition, and consider social and cultural dimensions, resilience, and governance. Owing to these complexities, most evaluations of the impact of innovations and policies on sustainability are limited to one or two dimensions of sustainability. Those steering innovation — policy makers — lack a holistic view of sustainability. It is this lack that the project seeks to fill. It aims to design a participatory method for identifying the impact pathways of urban food innovations on all dimensions of the sustainability of food systems. This method draws from the participatory methodology used to build causal models of malnutrition to capture the complexity of their determinants. It will be developed and tested on approximately fifteen urban food innovations around the world.

The project is coordinated by researchers from various disciplines at Cirad, Montpellier SupAgro, the Chair, Wilfrid Laurier University and Esta Milan. It combines research teams and project leaders from Baltimore (USA), Berlin (Germany), Brasilia (Brazil), Hanoi (Vietnam), Cape Town (South Africa), Mexico (Mexico), Milan (Italy), Montpellier (France), Paris (France) and Rabat (Morocco). It is funded by Agropolis Fondation, the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation and the Cariplo Foundation as part of the Thought for Food project.

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Interview with Elodie Valette

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For further information, contact the project coordinators:

• Elodie Valette, CIRAD
• Alison Blay-Palmer, Wilfried Laurier University, Ontario, Canada