Despite the long-lasting concern for food security in China at the national level, policy attempts to cope with this issue have often resulted to be ineffective. More importantly, they have rarely addressed the question from a local perspective.
International experiences of urban food strategies proved to be quite efficacious in
enhancing the local provision of food and improving the overall city sustainability by
shortening the supply chain, preserving peri-urban areas and improving the nutrition
of citizens.
By reviewing existing practices of city farming in China, mainly ascribable to urban
agriculture experiences, the intention of this paper is to reflect upon the challenges of implementing more comprehensive local food systems. In the conclusion the paper argues that, given the current institutional, socio-economic, and environmental constrains of Chinese cities there is a need of introducing holistic planning tool to assess local food systems in order to ensure the building of real healthy cities
