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Food and Cities

explores the systemic relations of food systems and urban development and how these relationships influence the transformation towards sustainable societies. 

A long-term focus on food and cities

Food & Cities is a collaboration between SLU Future Food and SLU Urban Futures. The project communicates SLU’s existing research and aims to create new encounters between different disciplines and sectors. The project seeks to identify knowledge gaps and cross-disciplinary research questions and investigates how a long-term thematic focus on food and cities could be established at SLU.   

Why Food and Cities? Educational Programmes on Food & Cities Research Initiatives on Food & Cities

Seed funding from Food & Cities

Researchers at SLU can apply for seed funding from Food & Cities to develop cross-disciplinary research that examines the systemic relationships between food systems and urban development and how these relationships affect the transformation to sustainable communities.

Heaps of pennies

Urban food production: Rooftop greenhouses

Rooftop greenhouses can provide fresh and locally produced food as well as optimise land use and energy efficiency. An interdisciplinary collaboration at SLU has investigated if this is a way forward for urban food production in Sweden.

A large glass building. Photo.

“The future of our planet depends on getting our cities right”

Urban Foodscapes refers to the complex inter-relations and connections between people, place and food. The production and consumption of food shapes, and is shaped, by social, spatial and discursive processes that play out across space, and over time.

A new way to prioritize food issues

Significant changes have occurred in the food system. The old local systems have started to strain as the systems become more global and complex. Now, we need new methods to secure food supply. One concept gaining increasing attention is food planning. What does it take to create a sustainable food system today?

Photo of Andrew Gallagher.

Educational Programmes on Food and Cities

There are a number of educational programmes at SLU that offer interdisciplinary learning on subjects relating to food and cities. The programmes are based at different faculties and departments across SLU and offer a range of technical training relating to food production, as well as a more holistic understanding of food systems in connection with social, ecological and economic systems. We also give courses in Food Planning as well as Bees, Apiculture and Pollination.

Food and Cities Education

Food planning for more sustainable food systems

This policy brief recommends integrated food planning—a method for society and policymakers to address and prioritize food issues sustainably at local, regional, and national levels.

Food preparedness requires collaboration

What is the state of food preparedness in Uppsala County? What do we need now and in the future to strengthen it? These questions were discussed by stakeholders from the entire food chain within the public sector during a workshop in Uppsala.

Post-it notes on a white paper on a table. Photo.

Social Innovation Living Lab, SOIL

New forms of collaboration and learning are being tested in Malmö. Here, urban farming converges with a spectrum of social activities, including vocational and language training, community gardening, team-building, and culinary workshops.

An innovation program to accelerate the green transition

SLU is part of the new large-scale strategic innovation program SustainGov, which has received funding through the Impact Innovation call. The program aims to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society.

A plate with nachos. Photo.

News & updates

Meet people working with Food & Cities at SLU

Published: 31 October 2024 - Page editor: futurefood@slu.se
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