Issue #5 (Urban) Food for Thought
Scaling Urban Food Systems Innovations in Asia
Hello everyone!
đŸ Welcome to Issue #5 of the Cities in Mind Newsletter. In this article, I follow up on my recent podcast conversation with Bjorn Low, founder of Singaporeâs Edible Garden City, to discuss some innovations in Asiaâs urban food systems.
I hope you liked this last podcast episode (and my attempts to teleport you to a Singaporean urban farm), as it took me forever to edit it (need to improve my GarageBand skills here..) đ
Urban food systems are complex by nature. And planning for food sustainability ultimately means relying on a combination of scientific discoveries, social innovation and long-term (spatial) planning approaches. Letâs see how Asia is foregrounding new tech (and non-tech) solutions for its food future.
I am also introducing a new section at the end of this issue: âWhat I liked this weekâ, compiling some articles or news that have sparked my interest this week đ€
If you find this article useful (I hope so!), please share it around you!
đ„ The Challenge (s)
Letâs start with the bad news (that you wonât find so surprising): Food systems in Asia are facing systemic challenges.
There are different reasons for this.
First, food demand is growing at unprecedented rates in Asia, mostly due to a rising middle-class craving for protein-rich diets (more meat) and wheat-based products such as bread or noodles (over traditional rice-based products).
Across the globe and not only in Asia, farmers need to grow more and they need to extend their crop land or enhance productivity on existing lands. Average global crop yields (the amount of crops harvested per unit of land cultivated) are unfortunately increasing too slowly to meet the forecast demand.
Second, urbanization and underinvestment in agriculture are exacerbating the situation.
Urbanization has indeed meant less land for agriculture and this has been particularly true for the Asia-Pacific region, as this graph below shows.
Urbanization also equates new consumption habits, with the rise of a more affluent middle-class, consuming more resource-demanding food products.
In summary, as this article smartly puts it:
âThe increasing amount of people to feed, while in decline in terms of growth rate, nevertheless demands more food and not just that, the food in demand itself demands higher resource-consumption â be it feeding the animals to then be slaughtered or the eating up of arable land due to urbanisation and population growthâ.
Third, Asian consumers are more and more concerned about food quality and food origins. Recent food scandals in different Asian countries have fed anxiety about provenance of food, hygiene and heavy use of pesticides and chemicals.
And fourth, if it was not enough, enters climate change. Increasing water-scarcity, rising temperatures and extreme weather events have diminished harvests in numerous countries in the region, raising concerns about the sustainability of Asiaâs food future.
Challenging times ahead..
đ€ The Innovations
On the good news side, scientists, entrepreneurs and policy-makers are working hard to spearhead new solutions and approaches to strengthen Asiaâs food systems.
First, there is a pressing need to leverage scientific and technological recent discoveries to boost agricultural productivity in Asia. Today, a wide array of technologies is being explored in the region, such as:
Digital farm management platforms, using ground, weather and satellite data to help agro-businesses take informed decisions, such as CropIn in India
Services to empower local farmers and give them access to Agriculture 4.0 technologies, such as 8Villages in Indonesia
Plant-based meat alternatives, which have existed for centuries in Asia (influenced by the diets of Chinese Buddhism), and which are seeing a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic
Food waste solutions (in Asia, up to 40% of food is lost after harvesting, during handling and storage, not making it to the stores), such as TaniHub in Indonesia
Second, and as we have seen earlier, social innovation is equally important to reinvent the relation between farmers and buyers, build trust and ensure food quality across the supply chain. Online retailing of food is expected to grow to USD 176 billion to 2022 in Asia and those social innovations are digital by design. Some examples:
A social network for farmers, RegoPantes in Indonesia, removing the middlemen and their associated costs
The use of social media to create direct connections between sellers and buyers in Hanoi, Vietnam, and push forward higher-quality products that differ from mainstream retail
Government-backed online-to-offline platforms, such as Cho nhĂ minh (our âown marketâ), again in Hanoi, to market safe food products and guarantee traceability
Blockchain-based solutions for food safety, such as Singaporeâs SunMoon Food
đ The Outlook
One of the main challenges to unleash the full potential of these various innovations is, youâve guessed it, scalability.
But in the case of urban food systems, what does it mean to innovate at scale? Is it purely about numbers or could there be something more transformative?
While scratching my head over this issue, I found it useful to explore some theoretical frameworks (yes, I like theories đ€ ), more precisely Theory of Change. In that case, I borrow an interesting framework, developed by three Canadian scientists (Moore, Riddell and Vocisano, 2015), titled âScaling Out, Scaling Up, Scaling Deepâto explain strategies of non-profits to advance systemic social innovation.
The researchers argue that the pathways towards systemic social changes include three dimensions and I believe those dimensions could easily apply to urban food systems innovations in Asia.
1/ Scaling Out: How to impact more people? - In the case of Asiaâs âdirect-from-farm platformsâ, how could they be replicated enough to involve greater numbers of people?
2/ Scaling Up: How to change institutions, reframe policies and regulations? How to foster a new food policy agenda and make it a whole-of-government priority, such as Singaporeâs 30 by 30 strategy?
3/ Scaling Deep: How to transform the norms, cultural beliefs and behaviours? Something more fundamental is at play here, including rethinking our food habits, going back to native plants and vegetables (instead of relying on imports). A topic I discussed with Bjorn in our podcast episode.
And while we need tech and social innovations to improve productivity and reinvent food supply chains, we also must not forget the need for better managed agricultural land, including around cities.
A new deal for urban food systems in Asia is at the crossroads between tech solutions, social innovation and sustainable spatial planning.
Safeguarding agricultural land and rescaling local urban food systems go hand in hand, as argued by the RUAF Global Partnership on Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Food Systems. The RUAF has pioneered, together with the FAO, the idea of City-Region Food Systems, an approach to engage all food systems actors in the design and planning of sustainable food strategies, including land-use (from the city centre to the peri-urban and hinterland areas).
Tomorrow, perhaps, urban food systems innovations (and rescaling) will help turn Asiaâs city fringes into active, productive, designed and resilient places. Through social, planning and technology innovations, one can dream of a better future for Asiaâs breadbaskets..
đ This week, what I liked (or found interesting⊠or surprising⊠or odd):
India aims at building a âmega-cityâ on the Andaman and Nicobar islands, threatening Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups
Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision Spoiler alert: wooden skyscrapers are still part of the plan!
Singapore reimagines what it means to be a business destination of choice A good illustration of the City-Stateâs resilience and creativity in an uncertain international business context.
A new kind of bladeless wind turbine is making the headlines. An interesting design and a complement to traditional wind farms to boost sustainable energy production?
Thatâs it for today. As usual, a small 𧥠at the bottom of the article goes a long way !
Thanks for your support and see you next week!