In just 20 years’ time 60% of the world’s population will be living in cities, notes Tim Lang
The fourth of October is UN World Cities Day, which cynics will dismiss as a gathering of the great and not so good, worthy declarations, and then inactivity. To its credit, the UN Human Settlements Programme has for 25 years championed politics on global urbanisation, not least on food.
We British ignore such thinking at our peril. While our food system is unsustainable, we're in no position to lecture. Happily, the tone of the UK food debate is shifting slightly. Years ago, big and small food companies denied the problem. Now most recognise the case for low carbon, low water, healthy futures, if not the delivery. Food Matters and Food 2030 made the consensual case. Last week's report by the Institute for Manufacturing to the FDF showed it's taken root. We need to grow, process, trade and eat differently. And change fast.
World hunger figures, just released from the forthcoming State of Food Insecurity 2010 report, are sobering. They've improved slightly this year after the 2008-09 spike, but long-term trends have flattened. The Asia-Pacific region has most undernourished people, 578 million. The most undernourished region proportionately is sub-Saharan Africa with 239 million, 30% of its people.
UN Habitat says that by 2030, five billion people 60% of the planet will be urbanised. Half of humanity already is. Developing world cities gain five million residents every month. By 2050, Asia alone will host 63% of the world's urban population, 3.3 billion people. Africa's 1.2 billion town people will be nearly a quarter of the world urban total.
Now consider our EU and UK legacy. Our urbanisation began two centuries ago, yet at its peak was nothing like the scale of today. Even so, it took a century to begin to civilise our towns and cities, and to get a modicum of decent food supply. And, wow, was there resistance! Policy battles went on for decades over whether to pay for clean water, air, streets, sewerage, education and food infrastructure. These were moral let alone economic fights over whether, how and who could act.
Change came when sufficient élites realised there was no escape, when scientific understanding of diseases seemed plausible and won political traction, and when threats to the social order combined with self interest. Today's obsession with cutting the state suggests we are not at that point yet. Meanwhile the planetary clock ticks.
Tim Land is professor of food policy at City University.
The fourth of October is UN World Cities Day, which cynics will dismiss as a gathering of the great and not so good, worthy declarations, and then inactivity. To its credit, the UN Human Settlements Programme has for 25 years championed politics on global urbanisation, not least on food.
We British ignore such thinking at our peril. While our food system is unsustainable, we're in no position to lecture. Happily, the tone of the UK food debate is shifting slightly. Years ago, big and small food companies denied the problem. Now most recognise the case for low carbon, low water, healthy futures, if not the delivery. Food Matters and Food 2030 made the consensual case. Last week's report by the Institute for Manufacturing to the FDF showed it's taken root. We need to grow, process, trade and eat differently. And change fast.
World hunger figures, just released from the forthcoming State of Food Insecurity 2010 report, are sobering. They've improved slightly this year after the 2008-09 spike, but long-term trends have flattened. The Asia-Pacific region has most undernourished people, 578 million. The most undernourished region proportionately is sub-Saharan Africa with 239 million, 30% of its people.
UN Habitat says that by 2030, five billion people 60% of the planet will be urbanised. Half of humanity already is. Developing world cities gain five million residents every month. By 2050, Asia alone will host 63% of the world's urban population, 3.3 billion people. Africa's 1.2 billion town people will be nearly a quarter of the world urban total.
Now consider our EU and UK legacy. Our urbanisation began two centuries ago, yet at its peak was nothing like the scale of today. Even so, it took a century to begin to civilise our towns and cities, and to get a modicum of decent food supply. And, wow, was there resistance! Policy battles went on for decades over whether to pay for clean water, air, streets, sewerage, education and food infrastructure. These were moral let alone economic fights over whether, how and who could act.
Change came when sufficient élites realised there was no escape, when scientific understanding of diseases seemed plausible and won political traction, and when threats to the social order combined with self interest. Today's obsession with cutting the state suggests we are not at that point yet. Meanwhile the planetary clock ticks.
Tim Land is professor of food policy at City University.
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