Urban x Rural: Developing Healthy Food Systems
Balancing our Agricultural Communities & Urban Centers
Our cities would not exist without agriculture. For most of humanity’s roughly 200,000 years, we lived in low-density hunter-gatherer communities. It was not until the development of agriculture around 10,000 years ago that we began the move toward stable settlements, which eventually evolved into cities. While this process of urbanization may have started thousands of years ago, as late as 1890, 90% of the global population lived in what would be considered rural settings, dedicated to agricultural production.[1]
The last 200 years have seen this all change. Large-scale migration to urban environments has led to a rapid urban growth, culminating in 2007 when, for the first time, a greater percentage of the global population lived in cities than rural areas.[2] This trend shows no signs of slowing with 68% of the global population projected to live in cities by 2050.
As we continue this trajectory toward urbanization, a new balance must be found that allows both our urban and rural communities to flourish. In Community with Food 2023 will explore the push and pull between rural and urban centers, using food as a gateway to help us understand the economic, social, cultural, and culinary disruption this rapid urbanization has created. ICWF will explore the complex interdependence of urban and rural communities and investigate how we can work together to create positive long-term outcomes for communities, culture, and the environment in both urban and rural spaces.
Guests will join chefs, farmers, policymakers, impact investors, bankers, activists, entrepreneurs, cultural practitioners, and storytellers from Hawai’i and around the world to cook together, eat together, learn from each other, and build relationships that can move us forward on our collective efforts to create a more regenerative future. Together, we’ll explore questions such as:
How do we achieve a meaningful balance between the health of our agricultural communities and that of our urban centers?
How can the values, traditions, and knowledge systems of our rural areas inform the development of healthy food systems and communities?
How can food help us manage the social tensions arising from increasing urbanization?
Can food be used to connect urban and rural residents in new ways?
How can urban residents of varying means best support rural communities? How can they reduce harm to rural communities?
How can rural communities thrive while providing healthy food at a global scale? How can they work to feed the urban residents facing food scarcity?
How do we create food-system resilience for both urban and rural communities?
We look forward to celebrating with you!
[1] Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2018) - "Urbanization". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization' [Online Resource].
[2] Ibid.