Building prefigurations of an agroecological urbanism: the case of public farmland in Ghent (Belgium)

The development of local food policies in Flanders has shed light on the possible strategic value of public farmland. This contrasts sharply with the large-scale sale of public agricultural land by local authorities that has been ongoing at the same time. This contradiction brings local authorities in an awkward position and continues to undermine the possibility to discuss the strategic use of public farmland in urban food policy. The result is a very trivial and sometimes counterproductive spatial food policy, which contributes to the continuation of food-disabling urbanisation processes. In Flanders, this debate has so far been conducted without an overview of the land owned by different public institutions. Using Belgian Land Registry data, we produced this missing cartography. It allows to explore and question some of the issues and contradictions in the current discourse on urban food policy. For this, we focus on the award-winning food policy of the city of Ghent, and we adopt a politicising agroecological farmers perspective. The research not only exposes a number of contradictions in current local food policy, but also highlights an untouched value for initiating an agroecological urbanism and bridging the deep rift between urban and rural worlds.