Document Type
Report
Publication Date
2013
Department
Balsillie School of International Affairs
Abstract
- The disjuncture between food security, migration and urbanization must be overcome. It is an institutional as well as a thematic disconnect on a global scale.
- Food security is primarily about access to food, not agricultural production.
- In an increasingly urban world, the locus of food and nutrition security will no longer be rural areas and the global perspective needs to shift appropriately.
- Hunger is a political as well as economic problem and requires state intervention.
- Increasing demand for food needs to be met in ecologically sustainable ways while ensuring that the poor have adequate access to food.
- Migration should be considered a normal process rather than a response to livelihood failure in rural areas.
- More research is needed on the impact of migrants’ remittances on food security.
- Urbanization is about much more than the rural poor moving to cities in search of work. In fact, urbanization and migration have the potential to reduce poverty and inequality.
- Policies that address urban food security need to appreciate the complex relationship between household food security and a range of variables such as income, gender and household size.
- Climate change is causing increased migration, especially to cities, and bringing about a complex shift in food distribution patterns that includes staple foods being sent to remote rural areas.
Recommended Citation
Migration, Urbanization and Food Security in Cities of the Global South: 26–27 November 2012, Cape Town, South Africa Conference Report. Waterloo, ON: African Food Security Urban Network; Cape Town: African Centre for Cities; and Kingston, ON: Southern African Research Centre.