JUST GROW: Co-designing justice-centric indicators and governance principles to intensify urban agriculture sustainably and equitably

City regions are a major proposed site for sustainably intensifying agricultural production to meet global food needs in the 21st century.

Greater investment in food production in cities and their peri-urban landscapes promises to shorten supply chains and reconnect producers with consumers, improving socio-ecological sustainability and resilience.

Sustainable urban agricultural intensification (UAI) can include many different approaches such as vertical farms, urban agroecology, etc.

Significant research has focused on the relative resource requirements, environmental footprints, and productivity of UAI, although evaluating the equity and justice implications of different pathways toward a sustainable city-region food system is largely underdeveloped.

This project will fill the gap by conducting transnational, transdisciplinary research across six city regions worldwide to learn from different contexts and regional approaches. This includes the USA, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands and Japan.

The project will produce 1) concise sets of credible and legitimate indicators for land access, labor equity, food security, environmental implications, and cultural sustainability that city regions can use to evaluate the equity impacts of UAI plans as a transition toward SSCP of food, and 2) recommendations for transformative, justice-centric policy innovations and principles that city region governance networks should adopt to steer UAI towards equitable SSCP of food.