7. Urban Food Security and Sustainability in Asian Cities

Because of increasing rural–urban migration, cities in the world currently hosting more than half of the world’s population are grappling with food security, which itself is complicated by other factors including climate change. The problem will be even more severe since over 70% of the global population will be living in cities concentrating largely in Asia in the next 30 years. Taking the cases of two Asian Tigers, Singapore and Hong Kong, this chapter offers an understanding of how vulnerable highly dependent food-importing cities can survive in an increasingly urbanized, capitalistic, and environmentally eroding world. Drawing on a framework of “challenges for urban food security” in the age of vulnerability and employing a robust content analysis substantiated by other primary methods in both Singapore and Hong Kong, the chapter explains why and how cities in the world are vulnerable to food security despite economic prosperity, and examines broader responses to battle food insecurity for its growing inhabitants.