Public action and policy implementation: a comparative analysis of Urban Agriculture in three regions of São Paulo

ABSTRACT

This article presents an analysis of the municipal urban agriculture (UA) policy implementation at the local level, based on a comparison of three regions of the Municipality of São Paulo, Brazil—namely extreme south, east, and north. Our findings show that although UA policymaking of the past has led to successful improvements at the municipal level, implementation is carried out timidly. They also show that policy implementation is still more remarkable in the southern region, less so in the eastern region, and almost nonexistent in the northern region. Our analysis suggests that three factors explain local differences in policy implementation: (1) access to land, (2) farmers’ organisations, and (3) the actions of nongovernmental organisations. We conclude that these aspects are producing a vicious cycle of differences between the three regions. Regions that have greater access to land also have greater potential for food production and more support to assist farmers’ production and organisation. As a result of these conditions, they are benefited with more policy implementation that reinforces the conditions for accessing food markets and public interest in reinvesting in them, reproducing inequalities related to policy implementation between the regions.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy implementation
• urban agriculture
• farmers’ organisation
• food markets

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Fonds de recherche du Quebec – Nature et technologie (FRQNT) and Coordenação de aperfeiçoamento de pessoal de nível superior (CAPES)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A difference of nomenclature of city and municipality should be clarified. After the recognition of rural regions by the Strategic Master Plan for the Municipality of São Paulo in 2014, the nomenclature “municipality” seem to be more appropriate to make reference to rural and urban regions. In this paper we’ll use the term “municipality” to make reference to rural and urban areas of the municipality of São Paulo. However, as the recognition of rural regions is recent, we have ancient documents and interviewers using “city” as a terminology to make reference to the municipality of Sao Paulo.

2 Access to a social mapping of UA in São Paulo: http://muda.org.br/#!/mapa

3 Access to the platform: https://sampamaisrural.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/

4 Although the multilevel model of analysis (Pozzebon, Diniz, and Jayo 2009; Pozzebon and Diniz 2012) proposes the terminology “content” to make reference to outcomes and results, we decide to simple use the term “outcomes” for the third dimension of this analysis.

5 COOPERAPAS is the Portuguese abbreviation for Cooperativa Agroecológica dos Produtores Rurais e de Água Limpa da Região Sul de São Paulo.

6 http://agricultoreszonaleste.org.br/

7 Access to the map: muda.org.br

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by CAPES; Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Nature et Technologies.