Food systems and rural-urban linkages in African secondary cities

Urban populations globally are expected to increase by approximately 2.5 billion by 2050. Much of this growth is taking place in African cities, where about 40% of Africans live in urban areas with populations of less than 250,000. In many of these cities, rapid urban growth has outpaced economic and social development, resulting in high levels of urban poverty and widespread food insecurity. As one response strategy, urban households may leverage their linkages with rural areas and other towns or cities to supplement their food consumption, for example through food remittances or food purchases from remote retailers. While this strategy has been found to occur among inhabitants of large cities where existing research on urban food systems and urban food linkages with other areas has focused, the dynamics in smaller cities are likely different. In this paper, we draw on data from 837 surveys collected in 2021 to investigate household food sourcing strategies across 14 urban areas in Zambia with populations less than 100,000. We find that rural-urban food linkages are dominated by grains while urban-urban food linkages are predominantly composed of higher value foods. Our data further suggest that urban area characteristics explain more of the variability in food sourcing behaviors than household level characteristics, and that urban food purchasing preferences in secondary urban areas are sensitive to the food retail landscape available to households. These relationships highlight the disparate role that rural and urban linkages play across cities of different sizes. They suggest a need for food-related policies to consider diverse urban food systems among smaller cities. • Households in African secondary urban areas have food linkages with rural areas and other urban areas • Rural-urban food linkages are dominated by grains, while urban-urban food linkages comprise more higher value foods • City-level characteristics explain more of the variability in food sourcing behaviors than household-level characteristics