Panel Talk: Building Transdisciplinary, Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships to Facilitate Transitions to Equitable and Sustainable Urban Food Systems

US urban food systems are dominated by large corporate forces and are riddled with social, economic and environmental challenges. Socially and economically, low income and minority communities often face disproportionate health burdens as they lack access to healthy, nutritious food, due to low availability and affordability of such food in their neighborhoods. Equally challenging, small producers, particularly minority-owned businesses, in urban and peri-urban areas face challenges with access to capital and formally entering in the food supply chain. Environmental challenges include high energy and water use during production, large carbon footprints in transportation and large volumes of waste throughout the system. Transitions towards equitable and sustainable urban food systems require an in-depth understanding of multi-level and cross sector dynamics in production-consumption chains, including local policies, institutional buying power, local production capacity, and community involvement. Actors across US cities and their surrounding “foodsheds” are developing new and innovative production, distribution and consumption processes, but they face challenges in scaling up and thus increasing their contribution to and impact on local and regional food systems. While demand for local food is increasing, policy mechanisms for scaling local food production and bolstering economic growth were established without considering structural inequalities, consequent environmental degradation, and market dynamics.