Reclaiming Food Insecurity in European Urban Policies: Lessons From Public and Community‐Based Initiatives

Abstract

Cities are at the forefront of socio‐ecological challenges, including food insecurity, rising inequalities, and environmental degradation. Despite a decade of progress in urban food policies, food insecurity remains a low priority in European cities, even as community and public responses increase, revealing persistent challenges in integrating different sectors in food policy‐making. Limited evidence and conceptualisations further hinder the development of effective interventions that combine food availability and accessibility with sustainability and empowerment goals. This study proposes an analytical framework grounded on the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition’s six‐dimensional approach (Availability, Access, Utilisation, Stability, Agency, and Sustainability) to address these gaps. Applying this framework to the case of Barcelona, the study maps local food insecurity responses and develops a new typology of initiatives, which range from targeted access programs to more comprehensive efforts that incorporate multiple dimensions such as agency and sustainability. The analysis highlights significant tensions within and between initiatives, particularly at the intersection of sustainability, agency, and access. Tensions reflect broader structural challenges in European urban food policies, where weak sectoral integration across economic, environmental, and justice areas limits effective responses to food insecurity. More comprehensive initiatives offer bottom‐up insights into navigating these tensions and trade‐offs. We argue that embracing all six food security dimensions can support urban policies to better address food insecurity by redesigning individual initiatives and leveraging their diversity and synergies from a place‐based perspective. A more critical, collaborative, multidimensional, and territorial approach that explicitly connects urban food policies with poverty reduction is essential for building inclusive, resilient, and just urban food systems.