Taking food out the private sphere? Addressing gender relations in urban food policy

Urban food policies are increasingly considered central instruments for the promotion of food systems sustainability. As for their social sustainability, justice and equity are expected to play a central role, but gender equity remains not fully developed. In order to explore how gender relations can be addressed in the context of urban food policies in global North settings, in this paper we analyze the drafting process of the Urban Food Strategy of Zaragoza (Spain), self-identified as agroecology-oriented and which aimed at introducing a gender-sensitive approach. Based on empirical insights from this case study, we show that a lack of reflection and empirical development exists on the food policy-gender equity nexus, while at the same time there is an emergent body of specific proposals to be obtained from feminist and agroecological reflections on urban lifestyles. Indeed, our paper shows that agroecological and feminist approaches converge in claiming for the visibilization of food-related care work, and in its de-privatization through community-based infrastructures. The paper also unveils limiting conditions which may hinder the transformative potential of agroecology and feminism in urban food policy co-production processes, such as top-down approaches to food policy production, weak participatory processes, and gender-blind decisions among city officers.