ROME — Governments meeting this week at the U.N. Committee on World Food Security endorsed new recommendations aimed at strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems, elevating city-led planning and agroecology as tools to curb hunger and climate risk. The United States and Argentina disassociated from the endorsement, according to the CFS 53 final report, as delegates and philanthropy groups argued the guidance could help cities scale proven food-policy fixes, Oct. 24, 2025.
Agroecology moves from fields to city halls
The recommendations, adopted during the annual session, are framed as a global policy guide rather than a binding treaty. In the meeting report, the committee described the package as “voluntary and non-binding,” language meant to keep it usable across very different political and economic systems.
Substantively, the policy recommendations on strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems call for a “systemic, territorial approach” that links municipal agencies with national ministries and recognizes “the key role of local governments” in shaping food access, public health and emissions. They also urge better coordination across the rural-urban continuum, reflecting how city demand, transport and wholesale markets can influence what farmers grow — and how much food is ultimately lost or wasted.
For supporters, the language matters because cities often move faster than national politics. The U.N.’s expert panel that helped shape the work warned that food insecurity is increasingly urban: of 2.2 billion people facing moderate or severe food insecurity, 1.7 billion live in urban and peri-urban areas. Its chair described cities as “a laboratory for food systems transformation,” according to an FAO summary of the HLPE-FSN report launch.
Donors test the financing pipeline for agroecology
That urgency carried into a two-day donor gathering the week before negotiations, where foundations, development agencies and food-systems partners discussed how to expand funding and coordinate reporting. The 2025 Agroecology Donors Convening listed the Agroecology Coalition, the Agroecology Fund, Germany’s GIZ and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food among the hosts, and promoted an “Agroecology Finance Tracking Tool” to help funders map what they support — and where gaps remain — as governments and city networks ask for longer-term, more flexible capital.
Cities show urgent fixes after Climate Week
Local leaders arrived with a growing playbook. The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Global Forum 2025, held in Milan from Oct. 13-17, brought officials from more than 300 cities together as the pact marked a decade of collaboration. City delegates traded practical measures — from municipal procurement standards and school meals to food-waste reduction, neighborhood markets and protections for peri-urban farmland — that backers say can deliver near-term benefits while broader national reforms remain stuck.
The push is not new. A 2017 C40 Cities review described the Milan pact as an early effort to knit climate and food policy together at the municipal level. A 2018 Civil Eats analysis, meanwhile, tracked how agroecology was gaining traction globally even as U.S. engagement lagged behind many other regions — a contrast that resurfaced in Rome as Washington stepped back from the new urban food policy consensus.
Still, the decision by the U.S. and Argentina to disassociate underscored how contested food policy language can become at the U.N., even in a voluntary framework. For advocates, the next test is whether the recommendations translate into budgets, land-use rules and public purchasing that make healthier, lower-emissions diets easier — and whether agroecology can move from the margins to the mainstream in the places where most people now eat.
