Fostering New Rural-Urban Relationships Through Markets, and the Key Role of Governance

Territorial food markets and governance have emerged as a key mechanism for the design and implementation new food systems and policies aimed at sustainable cities. However, the many existing policies tend to overlook the way food markets and supply strategies work. This chapter analyses governance in traditional agri-food markets in Brazil, aiming to demonstrate how, in different contexts, the economic interactions between actors are embedded in a set of social institutions (cultural values), which define modes of governance, participation in the markets and can be potential to fostering new (sustainable) rural-urban relations. These institutions challenge and compete with formal regulatory requirements imposed by the public authorities, which often disrupt and/or inhibit the development of local and traditional production and consumption practices, posing obstacles to the fostering rural-urban relations and the construction of solid local policies for food supply. Empirical data refer to three traditional Brazilian markets: the Feira do Pequeno Produtor in Passo Fundo, located in the South of Brazil, the Feira Central de Campina Grande and the Feira de Caruaru, both located in the Northeast of the country. The results point to the necessity and centrality to cities food supply policies recognise, encourage and institutionalise these markets traditional institutions in order to overcome supermarketisation and consolidate sustainable food systems. These process could be able to remove traditional markets from marginalise, promoting not only their survival, but their growth and consolidation as a source of decent work, healthy food and new sustainable rural-urban relationships.