The Nanjing Model: Comprehensive Food System Governance, Localization and Urban Food Security in China

Food supply localization has been extensively studied and advocated in North America and Europe, focusing on its oppositional stance to food system globalization, long food supply chains, the disconnect between producers and consumers, and a desire to reconnect urban consumers with small farmers in the hinterland of cities. The Northern model of city-region food localization has recently been taken up by governments, and promoted by international agencies such as the FAO and embedded in the New Urban Agenda (NUA) of Habitat III and the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. This paper focuses on an alternative conceptualization and practice of food system governance developed in Chinese cities since the late 1980s. This case study of Nanjing focuses on the similarities and differences between the Chinese model of comprehensive food system planning and localization and the Northern model of localization now being exported to the Global South. The Nanjing case offers an alternative model of food system governance could be more appropriate for other countries undergoing rapid urbanization and dealing with growing urban food insecurity.