The world now hosts over 55% of its population in urban areas, with estimates that this will increase to nearly 70% by mid-century as our population creeps towards 10 billion people. The resultant rise in food demand coupled with the necessary fall in greenhouse gas emissions (to net-zero in our country) requires us to make a break from our food system status quo. Solutions tend to point at the production-side of the food system. But what role is there for urban inhabitants in this mitigation? What allocation of food systems emissions can be attributed to cities? What measures can be deployed by urban residents to mitigate these? I will discuss case studies of the US and the UK food systems to explore these questions.
