Preparation of a federative project on "sustainable food security" within the framework of the Unesco Chair and international development of the InstitutAgro-Cirad IPAD master’s degree (Innovation for sustainable food)

Coordination meetings with the various research laboratories part of the flagship program and presentation of a concept note to the Science Council (SC) of Agropolis Fondation :

The objective of the present project is to prepare and present, by the end of 2013, a flagship programme focussing on the sustainability of urban food systems. In June 2012, initial dialogue was undertaken between the teams involved with a view to defining the outlines of the project. Over the period spanning 2012-13, the working areas and hypotheses presented in this document will be approved.
Food systems in industrialised countries are considered unsustainable from the standpoints of their impacts on the environment (pollution, climate change and biodiversity), health and well-being (obesity, cardio-vascular illnesses, diabetes, anxiety, etc.) and food security. Nevertheless, the different contexts observed from one country to another highlight the fact that cultures and policies can alter how situations evolve over time despite an apparent generalisation of these systems worldwide. The sustainability of food systems has given rise to a new line of research which several teams based in Montpellier and focussing on food intend to take up while adopting an approach which demonstrates a threefold originality by: a) focussing on the sustainability of food systems in a specific arena – that of cities which are now home to more than half the global population. This downstream approach to the food value chain (consumption, commercialisation and processing) provides an opportunity to call into question the processes further upstream (agricultural production); b) combining issues relating to the environment, food security and health, in particular by playing on the proximity of the agricultural and sanitary scientific communities in Montpellier and openness to other disciplines: town planning, political science and law; and c) approaching the research objectives by favouring combined approaches under the hypothesis that they make an important contribution to the viability of food systems. A future environment which is potentially unstable in climatic, economic and sanitary terms means that it is increasingly important to ensure a better understanding of the capacity of these systems to resist and evolve in crisis situations.