Urbanisation, rural transformations and food systems: the role of small towns (Lessons learned)

Published by the International Institute for Environment and Development, UK, in 2017, this report draws on lessons from a set of case studies from Tanzania and other examples. It combines a food systems approach with an explicit focus on small towns and large villages that play a key role in food systems. The paper considers that small towns are an essential but often-neglected element of rural landscapes and food systems. They perform a number of essential functions, from market nodes to providers of services and goods and non-farm employment to their own population as well as that of the wider surrounding region. In demographic terms, they represent about half of the world’s urban population, and are projected to absorb much of its growth in the next decades. But the multiple and complex interconnections between rural and urban spaces, people and enterprises – and how these affect poverty and food insecurity – remain overlooked.