De Landed Community Kitchen in de Agro-ecologische Transformatie van de Stad: een wijkaanpak

Abstract

Every human being needs air, water, food, and shelter to survive. Yet food is too often taken for granted. The food supply chain has been globalised and evolved to become destructive for the planet and all living things. The chain is run by corporations which separate consumers from producers, exploiting the farmers and soil whilst putting everyone on a supermarket diet, all in the name of profit. In the efforts to achieve a more sustainable food chain, other forms of farming are explored, such as agroecology. But in today’s urbanised world, sustainable food planning is impossible without considering cities, as these concentrations of people rely on a continuous flow of food from producers, who are pushed increasingly further away by urbanisation. In this light, agroecological urbanism tries to transform cities into food-enabling environments, by reconnecting them with the farmers.

This research focuses on the landed community kitchen as a starting point for realising the transformation of cities towards a more sustainable food system. And in particular, to rebuild relationships between producers and consumers. Starting from the landed community kitchen is a way to anchor the transformation locally, in a neighbourhood, and in a community. Different strategies are formulated through which transformation could be manifested, and to see what potential this approach might hold. How can it construct solidarities between old and new forms of decommodified food provisioning?

— Abstract, taken from the master dissertation.