Abstract :
This paper addresses the role of urban food supply for urban food security and attempts to uncover the diversity and complexity of the urban food system, through an integrated study of food production, distribution and consumption of two different foodstuffs. It focuses on informal food supply in a peripheral district of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. The study reveals that different foodstuffs contribute differently for urban food security, are integrated in the urban food system in different ways and have distinct production, marketing and consumption structures. The highly diversified nature of urban food supply is illustrated by the variety of scales of food production and marketing activities. Poor households integrate cash and subsistence elements in their food consumption, as well as the formal and informal urban food sectors in order to improve their access to food. But within the informal food sector, small-scale retailers and low status markets seem to play a crucial role in making food available to the poor at prices they can afford. The investigation takes the form of a case-study through a qualitative approach that has potential for revealing the experience of food insecurity and the coping strategies of the urban poor in an unplanned peripheral settlement.
