New inequalities in the urban agri-food system—insights from Bengaluru, South India

Food insecurity and urbanization are both on the rise in the Global South. Cities are considered to be beneficial for both farmers and consumers by providing market for farm produce and affordable food, respectively. Food urbanism—a phenomenon manifested within and beyond urban geographies- involves conspicuous consumption and revealed preference for safe, high value raw foods. This phenomenon triggers the emergence of alternative foods networks (AFN), marking a new phase in the evolution of urban agri-food systems (AFS). Paper explores the question how best to characterize and trace the changes in urban AFS along with their outcomes, in the context of emerging supply channels for fresh food in the city of Bengaluru. It examines the inequality outcomes of the distribution of benefits from food urbanism and related AFNs, among consumers and producers. Paper unpacks the coupled phenomena of agricultural production and urban food consumption, and employs a historical perspective to contextualize, and trace the evolution of urban AFS in the Global South. In the process, it characterizes nascent changes in urban AFS and foregrounds their distributional, sustainability and welfare outcomes among consumers and producers. Conceptual analysis applies the framework of metabolic rifts to understand the dynamic interface of food consumption and production and exposes multiple alienations in the current state of the urban food system as also in the alternative regimes in AFNs. Analysis of the inequalities embedded in food urbanism and AFNs uses a composite lens where the frameworks of regional, circular and moral economy converge. Based on the empirical study in and around the city of Bengaluru, using store exit polls and surveys among consumers, interviews as well as FGDs with consumers and producers, interactive consumer-producer forums and laboratory analysis of soil and plant samples, the paper argues that the emerging AFNs are not necessarily sustainable or equitable and are distributionally skewed against the poor among urban consumers and farmers. It identifies steps to reconfigure AFNs for progressive and sustainable transformation of urban AFS.