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With the rapid growth of professional intra-urban agriculture (PIUA) projects in the Global North, sponsors, projects leaders, and experts developing these projects are seeking to evaluate their sustainability. As existing assessment tools are not adapted to PIUA projects, they establish their own assessment practices. Our study examines these practices to identify their original features, criteria, and indicators used. To this end, we analysed 19 case studies of different PIUA projects. We identified four dimensions underpinning sustainability assessment, namely, internal sustainability, external sustainability, the project leader’s credibility, and the innovative nature of the project. We also shed light on the wide diversity of the 67 assessment criteria identified, as well as the qualitative nature of 78% of indicators used. In addition, our study highlights that assessment practices evolve over time as the project progresses from ideation to implementation, according to the variety of assessment situations. Our study is the first to provide an in-depth exploration of PIUA stakeholders’ sustainability assessment practices and to shed light on their specific features. Our results afford a better understanding of the way the sustainability of PIUA projects is assessed and contribute to reflection on the design of a flexible assessment tool, considering the diverse criteria and practices used by stakeholders to assess the sustainability of PIUA.

International audience; The City Region Food Systems approach has been proposed to achieve food system resilience and nutrition security while promoting the urgent ecological transition within urban and peri-urban areas, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the great diversity of the initiatives composing City Region Food Systems in Europe poses barriers to the assessment of their integrated sustainability. Hence, the present work is developed within the EU-H2020 project Food System in European Cities (FoodE), to build a consistentsustainability scoring system that allows comparative evaluation of City Region Food System Initiatives. Adopting a Life Cycle Thinking approach, it advances on existing knowledge and past projects, taking advantage of a participatory process, with stakeholders from multidisciplinary expertise. As a result, the research designs, and tests on 100 case studies a simplified and ready-to-use scoring mechanism based on a quali-quantitative appraisal survey tool, delivering a final sustainability score on a 1-5 points scale, to get insights on the social, economic, and environmental impacts. As in line with the needs of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the outcome represents a step forward for the sustainable development and social innovation of food communities in cities and regions, providing a practical and empirical lens for improvedplanning and governance.

Ecrit par des chercheuses d’AgroParisTech, de l’INRAE et du CNRS et illustré/mis en forme par Claire Painchaud, cet ouvrage interactif est un outil pédagogique pensé pour les enfants de 8 à 12 ans pour introduire les notions autour du système alimentaire durable passant par 5 étapes (production, transformation, distribution, consommation et gestion des déchets) présentant à chaque fois différents modes ou systèmes associant une présentation, une définition de terme et une activité à faire avec les enfants (quizz, recettes, lien vidéo…). Le parcours se fait en suivant 2 personnages, Marah et Arti, dans la ville de Terrix City afin de comprendre tout ce que cache notre assiette.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M The COVID-19 pandemic unveiled the fragility of food sovereignty in cities and confirmed the close connection urban dwellers have with food. Although the pandemic was not responsible for a systemic failure, it suggested how citizens would accept and indeed support a transition toward more localized food production systems. As this attitudinal shift is aligned with the sustainability literature, this work aims to explore the tools and actions needed for a policy framework transformation that recognizes the multiple benefits of food systems, while considering local needs and circumstances. This perspective paper reviews the trends in production and consumption, and systematizes several impacts emerged across European food systems in response to the first wave of pandemic emergency, with the final aim of identifying challenges and future strategies for research and innovation toward the creation of resilient and sustainable city/region food systems. The proposal does not support a return to traditional small-scale economies that might not cope with the growing global population. It instead stands to reconstruct and upscale such connections using a "think globally act locally" mind-set, engaging local communities, and making existing and future citizen-led food system initiatives more sustainable. The work outlines a set of recommended actions for policy-makers: support innovative and localized food production, training and use of information and communication technology for food production and distribution; promote cross-pollination among city/region food systems; empower schools as agents of change in food provision and education about food systems; and support the development of assessment methodologies and the application of policy tools to ensure that the different sustainability dimensions of the food chain are considered.

The last few years have seen an exponential development of urban agriculture projects within global North countries, especially professional intra-urban farms which are professional forms of agriculture located within densely settled areas of city. Such projects aim to cope with the challenge of sustainable urban development and today the sustainability of the projects is questioned. To date, no set of criteria has been designed to specifically assess the environmental, social and economic sustainability of these farms at the farm scale. Our study aims to identify sustainability objectives and criteria applicable to professional intra-urban farms. It relies on a participatory approach involving various stakeholders of the French urban agriculture sector comprising an initial focus group, online surveys and interviews. We obtained a set of six objectives related to environmental impacts, link to the city, economic and ethical meaning, food and environmental education, consumer/producer connection and socio-territorial services. In addition, 21 criteria split between agro-environmental, socio-territorial and economic dimensions were identified to reach these objectives. Overall, agro-environmental and socio-territorial criteria were assessed as more important than economic criteria, whereas food production was not mentioned. Differences were identified between urban farmers and decision makers, highlighting that decision makers were more focused on projects&rsquo, external sustainability. They also pay attention to the urban farmer agricultural background, suggesting that they rely on urban farmers to ensure the internal sustainability of the farm. Based on our results, indicators could be designed to measure the sustainability criteria identified, and to allow the sustainability assessment of intra-urban farms.