Comprehensive food system planning for urban food security in Nanjing, China

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Date
2021Author
Zhong, Taiyang
Si, Zhenzhong
Crush, Jonathan
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Food system planning is important to achieve the goal of “zero hunger” in the UN’s
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2016). However, discussion about comprehensive
planning for food security is scarce and little is known about the situation in Chinese cities. To narrow
this gap, this study collected and analyzed four medium-term plans and two annual plans for the
“vegetable basket project” in Nanjing, China. This study examines the strategies for urban food
security in Nanjing to shed light on how the city developed a comprehensive approach to food
system planning over the past three decades. The evolution of incremental food system planning in
Nanjing provides valuable lessons for other cities facing food security challenges and shortages of
financial resources. Reducing food insecurity is an ongoing challenge for the city governments in
the Global South and comprehensive planning is a useful tool for addressing the challenge of urban
food insecurity.