Is Food Still a Stranger in Planning? The Integration of Food Systems in Urban Planning

The concern on feeding cities sustainably increases the urgency to integrate Food Systems (FS) in planning. Urban Agriculture (UA) has gained attention from city authorities and planners as a strategy to enhance FS’s resilience and food security. However, although food is increasingly conceived as a challenge to be addressed in planning, the literature suggests that food policies are still not adequately implemented due to 1) urban bias, by which FS and agriculture are considered rural, 2) inadequate sectorial and centralized governance, and 3) the informality embedded in FS. The objective of this research is to explain why, despite the existence of policies promoting FS’ integration in planning, these are still not adequately implemented. I use the mentioned hypothesis to evaluate food policies and planning’s misalignment using the case study of UA in Quito. Building on the conceptual framework of Food Systems Planning, I consider UA as a constituent element of FS, which serves as an entry point to examine the mentioned misalignment. I conducted qualitative research to compare UA gardeners, planners and city authorities’ perspectives about the integration of UA in planning. I used desk research to familiarize myself with UA policies in Quito. Additionally, I completed interviews complemented by observations of the gardens to contextualise UA practitioners’ interviews. The findings show that despite FS are considered in planning tools, these are still inadequately implemented due to their macro and rural focus, resulting in the absence of FS planning at the urban scale. The inadequate implementation is explained by urban-bias and scant governance, as FS are addressed by sectors, and centralized food policies disregard food planning at the neighbourhood scale. I conclude that informality is the factor that helps the most to explain the misalignment given stakeholders’ disagreements around UA’s role and its implementation in planning. Bourdieu’s Theory on Social Fields is a useful concept to understand how these diverse perceptions prompt distinct rationales behind UA policies. Ultimately, I conclude that policies formalizing UA as an economic activity are inadequate as fail to recognize UA’s diverse actors, scales and motives. Finally, I determine that UA policies should be more empirically informed responding to US benefits expressed by UA practitioners. Finally, I propose a revised conceptual framework highlighting how food policies and planning’s misalignment is not only explained by planning's limitations, but due to policies that inadequately respond to the local food context, neglecting an ecosystem food systems approach.