POPCORN : Research network on POPulations and their food COnsumption in uRbaN areas

Context and challenges

Food plays a decisive role In for the flow of materials and energy ofin an urban areas. Upstream, food systems influence the supplying areasterritories where supplies come from, both in terms of gross volume to be transported and the nature of the products concerned, as urban lifestyles being intricately tied to diets that are higher in fat, sugar, meat and processed foods. Downstream, urban populations are a major source of discharge waste in the form of organic matter via human excretaexcrement and food waste.

The challenges that come with urban food systems are multiplemany and concern both scientific issues regarding identifying the supplying areas territories that can provide supplies, modes of production and processing, the food footprint of cities, food relocation, waste management, nutrient recovery and hinterland governance of the relations with the hinterland. On a more operational level, a growing number of localterritorial authorities are taking an interested in how to relocate part a portion of the food supply and reduce the carbon footprint and other pollution within the framework of public policy measures schemes (for example territorial food projects, city food policies, circular economy plans, waste management plans, etc.).

This workese studies requires to define a precisely definition of who eats in the areaterritories, in what form, and under what conditions, for those are the factors that condition and determine the flows both upstream and downstream. The characterisation of “the eating population” is therefore an indispensable prerequisite for many characterisation of “the eating population” is therefore an essential prerequisite for many issues related to research being done on the bioeconomy in the field of food.

Goals

The POPCORN consortium POPCORN is interested takes a look atin two blind spots in the research mentioned above. The first one concerns is related to the quantification of the eating population that eats, which most often is based on the residential population only, via census statistics from INSEE (legal population of municipalitiescommunes). However, But the additional populations also needs to be taken into account considered (eg. tourists, commuters) as well as the time spent of presence and absence of all populations in the areaterritory. The second blind spot is concerns related to how the way in which food consumption is connected to other links of the system, notably upstream, where agricultural production takes place, and downstream, where waste generationis generated.
 
With Over the course of the POPCORN project, our ambition the goal is to worklook onat these two complementary dimensions: the eating population that eats and its food consumption and the transformation of food matter, thus allowing for a more reliable quantitative analysis of the materiality of the food systems of an areaterritories by connecting agricultural production sectors to consumption and waste – sectors that are often looked at in isolation. The project therefore aims to buildcreate a research network that will to gain a broad understanding of the eating population that eats in studies on urban food metabolism studies. In this doing so, the project seeks to propose resources that can be mobilised as a prerequisite for other workstudies interested in on the urban bioeconomy through metabolic approaches, in terms of food consumption (eg. supplying areas territories; agricultural production) and also downstream from of consumption (waste generation of waste, losses, managing coby-products).

Contacts - Coordination :

INRAE and non-INRAE partners