Food and the City

6 EC

Semester 1, period 2, 3

5132FOTC6Y

Owner Bachelor Future Planet Studies
Coordinator dr. Jannes Willems
Part of Exchange Programme Faculty of Science, specialisation BSc Future Planet Studies, year 1Minor Sustainable Food System, year 1Bachelor Future Planet Studies, major Future Society, year 2

Course manual 2022/2023

Objectives

  • Explain the interrelationships between cities and food systems, and the shift towards a re-localized food system
  • Analyse everyday food practices, both in Amsterdam and internationally
  • Explain the spatial arrangements, institutional designs and value systems of different food systems, and their impact on cities
  • Explain the role of urban planning in the transition towards a re-localized food system
  • Apply innovative and sustainable solutions pertaining to the urban food system and food practices into policy recommendations
  • Critically reflect on the shift towards a re-localized food system, and the contribution of urban planning

Teaching methods

  • Lecture
  • Seminar
  • Fieldwork/excursion
  • Presentation/symposium
  • Working independently on e.g. a project or thesis

Learning activities

Activity

Hours

  

Excursion

4

  

Lectures

16

  

Symposium

2

  

Exam

3

  

Working groups

12

  

Group work

72

  

Self study

59

  

Total

168

(6 EC x 28 uur)

Attendance

Programme's requirements concerning attendance (OER-B):

  • Participation in fieldwork is compulsory and cannot be replaced by assignments or other courses.
  • In case of practical sessions, the student is obliged to attend at least of 90% of the sessions and to prepare himself adequately, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. In case the student attends less than 90%, the practical sessions should be redone entirely.
  • In case of tutorials/seminars with assignments, the student is obliged to attend at least 7 out of 8 seminars and to prepare thoroughly for these meetings, unless indicated otherwise in the course manual. If the course has more than 8 seminars, the student can miss up to 1 extra meeting for every (part of) 8 tutorials/seminars. If the students attends less than the mandatory tutorials/seminars, the course cannot be completed.

Additional requirements for this course:

  • The first lecture is a mandatory lecture;
  • Students are allowed to miss only 1 out of 6 working groups;
  • Absence of a working group needs to be communicated to the working group lecturer;
  • Participation in the excursion is mandatory.

Assessment

Item and weight Details

Final grade

35%

Exam

Must be ≥ 5.5

Assignment 1: Project design

Must be ≥ pass

25%

Assignment 2: Food asset mapping

25%

Assignment 3: Policy brief & presentation

15%

Individual essay

Must be ≥ 5.5
  • The exam will cover the course material discussed in block 2;
  • The individual essay will cover the course material discussed in block 2 and 3;
  • Assignments 1-3 are group assignments (4-5 students per group) and build further on each other.

Assessment diagram

Learning objective: Exam Assignment 2 Assignment 3 Individual essay

#1. Explain the interrelationships between cities and food systems, and the shift towards a re-localized food system

 X      

#2. Analyse everyday food practices, both in Amsterdam and internationally

   X    

#3. Explain the spatial arrangements, institutional designs and value systems of different food systems, and their impact on cities

 X X   X

#4. Explain the role of urban planning in the transition towards a re-localized food system

 X X   X

#5. Apply innovative and sustainable solutions pertaining to the urban food system and food practices into policy recommendations

     X  

#6. Critically reflect on the shift towards a re-localized food system, and the contribution of urban planning

       X

Students that were enrolled in the course in previous years

Students who were enrolled previously have the same assessment as last years. For Food and the City, this means the exam, but not the group assignments and essay.

Inspection of assessed work

Inspection of assessed work will take place

Assignments

Students will work in groups to (1) define the strenghts and weaknessess of the Amsterdam food system (assignment 2) and (2) develop solutions to improve the systems (assignment 3). To this end, they first draft a project design (assignment 1). Progress and feedback will be discussed in the working groups. Assignment 1 will be graded as pass/fail, assignment 2 and 3 with a grade (1-10).

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Date
 Activity Lecturer(s)
 Content Reading material
31-10 Lecture 1 JW Introduction to food and the city

Pothukuchi, K., & Kaufman, J. L. (1999). Placing the food system on the urban agenda: The role of municipal institutions in food systems planning. Agriculture and Human Values, 16(2), 213-224.

Wiskerke, J. S. (2009). On places lost and places regained: Reflections on the alternative food geography and sustainable regional development. International Planning Studies, 14(4), 369-387.
03/04-11 WG1 RvS, JR Foodscapes of Amsterdam

FAO (2018) City Region Food System Tools/Examples: City Region Food System Toolkit. Rome: FAO. http://www.fao.org/3/i9255en/I9255EN.pdf. (pages 133-144)
07-11 Lecture 2 JW Food security and food democracy

Sen, A. (1986). Food, economics and entitlements. Chapter 2 in: Drèze & Sen (1991) The Political Economy of Hunger: Volume 1. Entitlement and Well-being. Oxford University Press

Sonnino, R. (2016). The new geography of food security: exploring the potential of urban food strategies. The Geographical Journal, 182(2), 190-200.
11-11 Deadline assignment 1
14-11 Lecture 3 JW Everyday food practices

Roy, A. (2005). Urban informality: toward an epistemology of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 71(2), 147-158.

Battersby, J., & Watson, V. (2018). Improving urban food security in African cities. Critically assessing the role of informal retailers. Chapter 9 in: Cabannes & Marocchino (2018). Integrating Food into Urban Planning. FAO.
17/18-11 WG2 RvS, JR Informal & formal urban food practices Chapters 2, 5, 8 and 12 in Cabannes & Marocchino (2018). Integrating Food into Urban Planning. FAO. (Students will be assigned one chapter)
21-11 Lecture 4 JW Food systems & transitions

Ilieva, R. T. (2016). Why urban food planning? Chapter 1 in: Urban food planning: Seeds of transition in the Global North. Routledge.

Born, B., & Purcell, M. (2006). Avoiding the local trap: Scale and food systems in planning research. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(2), 195-207.
25-11 Excursion JW, RvS, JR Boeren van Amstel  
28-11 Lecture 5 WB Food & identity: geographies of meat

Lapiņa, L., & Leer, J. (2016). Carnivorous heterotopias: Gender, nostalgia and hipsterness in the Copenhagen meat scene. Norma, 11(2), 89-109.

Alkon, A. H., & Cadji, J. (2020). Sowing seeds of displacement: Gentrification and food justice in Oakland, CA. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 44(1), 108-123.
01/02-12 WG3 RvS, JR Progress food asset mapping  
05-12 Lecture 6 JW Urban food planning & policymaking

Cabannes & Marocchino (2018) Chapter 1

Sibbing, L., Candel, J., & Termeer, K. (2021). A comparative assessment of local municipal food policy integration in the Netherlands. International Planning Studies, 26(1), 56-69.
09-12 Deadline assignment 2
19-12 Exam
Christmas break
09-01 Lecture 7 AvdV & CU Civic food initiatives

Renting, H., Schermer, M., & Rossi, A. (2012). Building food democracy: Exploring civic food networks and newly emerging forms of food citizenship. The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 19(3), 289-307.

Ilieva (2018) The untapped potential of urban development projects. Chapter 6 in: Urban food planning: Seeds of transition in the Global North. Routledge.
12/13-01 WG4 RvS, JR International food planning practices Chapters 3, 10, 14 and 16 in Cabannes & Marocchino (2018). Integrating Food into Urban Planning. FAO. (Students will be assigned one chapter)
16-01 Lecture 8 LvdK Vertical farming Petrovics, D., & Giezen, M. (2022). Planning for sustainable urban food systems: an analysis of the up-scaling potential of vertical farming. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 65(5), 785-808.
19/20-01 WG5 RvS, JR Urban planning tools

De Zeeuw, H. & Dubbeling, M. (2015) Process and tools for multi-stakeholder planning of the urban agro/food system. In: De Zeeuw, H. & Drechsel, P. (2015) Cities and Agriculture. Developing Resilient Urban Food Systems. London: Routledge, pp.56-87. https://ruaf.org/document/cities-and-agriculture-developing-resilient-urban-food-systems/

Additional material: The Community and Regional Food Planning Policy Guide (USA), see https://www.planning.org/policy/guides/adopted/food.htm
20-01 Deadline essay
26/27-01 WG6 RvS, JR Progress policy brief  
03-02 Symposium JW, RvS, JR Presentations policy brief  
03-02 Deadline assignment 3

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Additional information

It is important that everyone feels safe at the UvA and Future Planet Studies. We are committed to provide social safety and we offer various forms of support for people experiencing inappropriate or unsafe situations. Consult the UvA website or Future Planet Studies Canvas page for more information and contact info.

Last year's student feedback

In order to provide students some insight how we use the feedback of student feedback to enhance the quality of education, we decided to include the table below in all course guides.

Course Name (#EC) N  
Strengths
  • International case studies
  • Applicability to Amsterdam
 Notes for improvement
  • Overlapping themes
  • Lack of theory
Response lecturer:
  • The course has been merged (now 6EC), with three clear themes (geographies of food, food system transformations, and urban food policymaking and planning)
  • New literature; more conceptual articles that will complement the existing case studies

Contact information

Coordinator

  • dr. Jannes Willems

Staff