THE PAPERS IN this edited collection were presented at the international conference on Sustainable Urban Food Systems held in Toronto in 1997. The aim of the book is to develop a conceptual and practical framework, and several papers propose ways to improve the availability and accessibility of food for urban residents, and discuss the feasibility of various forms of more self-reliant urban food systems. The collection also contains insights on how existing marketing and distribution structures can be improved, why and how different forms of urban food production and distribution are emerging and how local food systems can better respond to the food security needs of urban dwellers, both in the South and in the North. The authors of the contributions include academics, community organisers, policy makers, practitioners and youth representatives. The papers are divided into eight sections. The first one sets the conceptual framework, with papers focusing on urban food production in the South and in sub-Saharan Africa and on the tension between poverty reduction and environmental and social sustainability in food programmes in Canada. The papers in the second section describe local food systems in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, while the papers in the following section examine urban and community agriculture in Cuba, Zambia and the United States. This is followed by a section on accessibility and urban food distribution, with papers describing various elements of the system, from food banks in Toronto to the informal transportation network in Harare, Zimbabwe, to local staple stores in Turkey. Section five examines ecological and health concerns, including the reuse of waste for food production in Asian cities and a case study of Poland. Section six introduces the concept of gender in food security, including the increasing feminisation of export agriculture in Mexico. Section seven examines the politics of food and food production, with examples from food and farm policy in the United States and Canada. The papers in the final section draw some general conclusions by linking human rights, the market economy and the role of the state and proposing approaches to food security based on the concept of food democracy.