TOWARDS A WORLD OF URBAN FOOD SYSTEMS?
Urban agriculture, Urban food systems, Vertical Farms, Food Justice, Urban Planning
The continuous increase in population, and the acceleration of urbanization and megalopolization call in question the nature of the agrifood system and current forms of food distribution. Urban agricultura in its diverse modalities presents as great a heterogeneity as conventional agricultural systems, and in parallel to this latter, distinct approaches confront each other - with the defence of an urban agriculture based on social inclusion on the one hand, and on the other, the recourse to advanced technologies, such as those incorporated into the modekl of vertical farms. We present these different systems, the processes and actors involved, together with the challenges they pose and the visions of future urban life which they incorporate. In the seond half of the XX century the world´s urban population tripled and today for the first time in the history of humanity more people live in urban rather than rural surroundings. It is expected that by 2050 as much as two thirds of the world´s population will be living in urban areas. In this context the concept of the city is being subject to scrutiny, no longer being seen simply as a component of the division between urban and rural but rather seen as an integrated form of social life. In this new context of accelerated urbanization, urban agriculture/food systems begin to be seen as a natural component of the conception of the city and central to the implementation and development of urban food systems able to respond to the coming social, climatic and food security challenges.