Environment & Urbanization

World leading environmental and urban studies journal

Urbanisation, rural transformations and food systems: the role of small towns

Author(s): 
Cecilia Tacoli, Jytte Agergaard

Publisher: 
International Institute for Environment and Development

Pages: 
29

Year: 
2017

Small towns are an essential but often-neglected element of rural landscapes and food systems. They perform a number of essential functions, from market nodes to providers of services, goods and non-farm employment to their own population, as well as that of the wider surrounding region. In demographic terms, they represent about half of the world’s urban population, and are projected to absorb much of its growth in the next decades. But the multiple and complex interconnections among rural and urban spaces, people and enterprises – and how these affect poverty and food insecurity – remain overlooked. Drawing on lessons from a set of case studies from Tanzania and other examples, this paper aims to contribute to this debate by uniting a food systems approach with an explicit focus on small towns and large villages that play a key role in food systems.

Available from:

http://pubs.iied.org/10806IIED/?c=urban

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