The Analysis of Iran's Development Policies and Programs with Emphasis on Sustainable Urban Food Security

Document Type : Review Paper

Authors

1 Department of Geography, Faculty of Humanities, Zanjan University, Zanjan, Iran

2 , Department of Geography, Faculty of Humanities, Zanjan University, Zanjan, Iran

3 Department of Geography, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Food has become both a central issue in development and a vision for integrating and addressing a wide range of contemporary global challenges, attracting high-level attention in international policy debates among global, national, and local actors. Also, food is a political issue that raises debates about how to form and change food systems and the nature of power relations between different actors. Meanwhile, the policies of the government, as the strongest actor in food systems, have an irreplaceable effect on achieving sustainable food security and realizing the right to food for urban and rural residents. In terms of methodology, the current research is among the qualitative researches, carried out with the method of content analysis of the development programs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with an emphasis on sustainable urban food security. The themes were structured using MAXQDA 2020 software. Themes related to food security are categorized in the form of four indicators of availability, accessibility, benefit, and stability. The results show that the approach of development programs to food security is still rural-based, and cities are more prominent as consumers of rural products, and the planning of sustainable food systems in the context of these programs has not been seriously pursued. Therefore, realizing food security as an output of sustainable food systems and realizing the right to food of urban residents is facing a problem. In this regard, the approach of development programs should be based on the integration of food policies and the sustainability of production and a coordinated approach to food challenges. It is suggested that in the process of establishing development laws, the integration of sustainable food policies and the role of urban planners in urban food policy should be on the agenda.
 
Extended Abstract
1-Introduction
Food has become both a central theme in development and a vision for integration and addressing a wide range of contemporary global challenges, and has attracted high levels of attention in international policy debates among global, national, and local actors. Food is also a political issue that discusses how food systems are formed and changed and the nature of power relations between different actors. Meanwhile, government policies, as the strongest player in food systems, have an undisputed effect on achieving sustainable food security and the realization of the right to food for urban and rural residents. In the same decade, urban governments (commonly known as local governments) around the world have mobilized the power of food formation for urban development. Policies that integrate the various sectors and actors involved in providing good food for all. Thus, cities are gradually realizing their responsibility to provide access to adequate food for all its citizens in a sustainable manner and to respond to the positive effects that these changes could have on our planet's health. Local and regional governments are increasingly recognized as key players in the sustainability and resilience of local food systems that promote food security. This role was recognized by the New Urban Agenda, which addresses food security and nutrition as one of the current and future challenges for cities, highlighting integrated territorial approaches and strengthening rural-urban ties.
 
2-Materials and Methods
The current research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of nature and method based on qualitative analysis. The method of data collection is documentary, and in terms of the time of data collection, it is cross-sectional. Also, the method of data analysis is thematic analysis. To carry out the research and in order to formulate a logical framework based on the stated goals, first the literature and the background of the research were studied and at the same time the development plans of Iran after the revolution were examined. To perform the method of thematic analysis, as described in Table 1, it has been done. Codes were modified frequently and if needed during the analysis. Also, during the process of coding and studying the text, comparative analysis were used in order to recognize the differences and similarities of the themes. Maxqda 2020 software has been used to produce themes and structure them properly. Understanding the themes has been done by studying the text of the programs line by line. To analyze the relationship between themes, the theme network method has been used in this research. The network of themes, based on a specific process, organizes the basic themes (codes and key points of the text), the organizing themes (themes obtained by combining and summarizing the basic themes) and the overarching themes (higher themes including the principles governing the text as a whole); Then these themes are shown in the form of website network maps, drawing and prominent themes of each of these three levels along with the relationships between them.
 
3- Results and Discussion
What emerges from the policy analysis of the Six Development Plans is that the nature of some of these policies is the same in all programs, and only some have evolved over time. Some new policies have also been added to the body of applications. The programs are evident from the first program to the sixth program. The approach to agricultural production and food security in the programs is based on the pattern of rural production and cities have a greater role of consumers of rural products. Slade (2016) argues that urban planners have neglected food planning because it is seen as a rural issue with no connection to the built environment. They are endangering the food security of urban residents by neglecting food planners, whose food security issues are now exacerbated by the nature of the urban environment. In these programs, urban agriculture as one of the factors affecting urban food security has been neglected and there is no written policy for it. The notion that food production is a rural issue has not been properly understood by urban agriculture in cities. Urban planners in developed countries are depicting cities as farms. Whatever the reasons, this confusing neglect has now become an interesting issue, as in the foreseeable future, food planning seems to become an important and legal part of planning in developed and developing countries. Planners now realize food policy for a very simple reason: their political masters have been forced to take food policy more seriously because of the new food equation. Therefore, it was necessary in these programs to pay special attention to the urban dimension of food security and not to consider cities as independent of food production and only as consumers, based only on the intellectual basis of modernity.
 
 4- Conclusion
Food as important issue in development planning has a special place in international, national, and local issues. Various actors from the public to the private sector are involved in food system planning, and the balance of decision-making power is crucial. Nevertheless, political rhetoric poses a serious challenge to the world in designing sustainable food systems and the approach to food security. New estimates show that global food insecurity and malnutrition persist and remain stubborn. Dominant trends in food production also damage ecological processes and the land system, causing up to half of greenhouse gas emissions, destroying biodiversity, destroying topsoil, and upsetting nutrient cycles which plays a major role in transcending so-called planetary boundaries. While these trends are not in themselves the focus of the study, they paint a disturbing picture in which current food system configurations severely undermine broader development plans for sustainable development goals. In this study, we seek to show how policy, power, and planning can more fully address these growing national concerns about food, hunger, and nutrition. The development plans of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as upstream documents of development, play the guiding role of development planning. In this regard, the discourse analysis of these programs on issues related to food and food security is important. The analysis of the text of the plans shows that over time, more attention has been paid to food planning issues and government policies in this area have become more comprehensive. In this study, topics related to four food security indicators (availability, accessibility, utilization, stability) have been extracted from development plans.

Keywords

References

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Geography and Environmental Sustainability
Volume 12, Issue 4 - Serial Number 45
January 2023
Pages 119-138

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