Vigo City Region Repor
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Work package 2 / Deliverable D2.2 Galicia / National report The Metropolitan Area of Vigo in the north western part of Spain Lola Domínguez García, Damián Copena Rodríguez, Paul Swagemakers and Xavier Simón Fernández Grupo de Investigación Economía Ecolóxica e Agroecoloxía (GIEEA), Vigo University, Spain October 2013 2013 SUPURBFOOD National report: Galicia (Spain) Table of contents 1 Case study report on Galicia, Spain 3 1.1 Governance structure 3 1.2 History of agriculture, land-use structure and ownership patterns 4 1.3 Land planning system 5 1.4 Sketch of the pre-dominant forms of food retailing 6 1.5 Current levels of recycling and resource protection 7 2 Introduction to the Metropolitan Area of Vigo (MAV) 8 2.1 History and conceptualisation of the city-region 8 2.2 Current social and economic situation 9 2.3 Development of food strategies and key actors 10 2.4 Pre-dominant forms of food retailing at the city-region level 11 2.5 Current levels of recycling (nutrients and water) at city-region level 12 2.6 Land-use map 12 3 Dynamics in the city-region 15 3.1 Stakeholder consultation 15 3.1.1 Social media analysis 15 3.1.2 Interview round 16 3.1.3 The first city workshop 17 3.2 Short food supply chains 21 3.3 Multi-functional land-use 23 3.4 Closing the cycles of organic waste, water and nutrients 24 3.5 Towards a regional food strategy 25 4 Conclusions 26 4.1 Blockages 28 4.2 Priorities 28 4.3 Opportunities 29 4.4 People, policy-makers and programs 29 4.5 Remaining knowledge gaps on Vigo’s new food strategy 31 2 2013 SUPURBFOOD National report: Galicia (Spain) 1. Case study report SUPURBFOOD is the acronym for a research project entitled ‘Towards sustainable modes of urban and peri-urban food provisioning’. It is financed by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. The project started in October 2012 and will run for 36 months. The project brings together research teams and SMEs in the food and agriculture domain from 7 European countries (The Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Latvia and Switzerland) and the International Network of Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF), which focuses on food and agriculture issues in urban and peri-urban settings in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The European city-regions involved in the project are: City-region Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Metropolitan Area Rome (Italy), City-region Ghent (Belgium), Metropolitan Area Vigo (Spain), City-region Bristol (United Kingdom), City-region Zürich (Switzerland), Greater Riga Region (Latvia). This report is on the Metropolitan Area Vigo (an informal, not yet existing administrative governance level), in Galicia, Spain. 1.1 Governance structure Spain is divided in 17 autonomous regions and 52 provinces. The north western region Galicia (Figure 1a) consists of four provinces (A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, Pontevedra) that are divided again in ‘Comarcas’ (Figure 1b): territorial intermediate environments formed by a set of neighbouring municipalities with an internal cohesion among them based on geographical, historical, economic and functional facts (Law 7/1996, 10th June). Figure 1a. Galicia in north western Spain Figure 1b. Location of Vigo 3 Over the past century Vigo (marked red In Figure 1b) grew from 40,000 to nearly 300,000 inhabitants and became the largest city in Galicia. Simultaneously, political, demographic and socio-economic factors contributed to the progressive dismantling of the traditional Galician land-use system and changing land-use patterns. 1.2 History of agriculture, land-use structure and ownership patterns Galicia has been traditionally a rural region with a strong reliance on the primary sector, its landscape profoundly being shaped by farming and forestry activities (Diaz Maroto and Vila Lameiro 2008). For centuries and until into the second half of the 20th century, farming activities performed environmentally well on the basis of an ‘organic agro- ecosystem’ (Simón Fernández 1995), which combines different land use systems, such as crops, cattle and Monte (areas of forest, scrub and bushes). Soil fertility was a determining factor for the functioning of this traditional land-use system and Monte its cornerstone (Soto 2006). From the end of the 1940s, the Franco regime encouraged forestation. This particularly affected Monte and entailed significant changes in land use, which led to the enlargement of the forest areas and the diminution of scrub and bushes, which until then had played a central role in providing different inputs and functions to food production. Moreover, forest enlargement was largely achieved by planting non-native varieties which significantly contributed to spreading forest fires. Property (in many case communal) returned to their original owners in the end of the 70’s (Grupo dos Comúns 2006). In any case at that point, both in those areas where Monte had not been expropriated and in those where it had been expropriated socio-demographic and economic conditions had drastically changed and agricultural modernisation followed an agro-industrial trajectory. As a result, Monte became a resource disconnected from food provision practices. Migration patterns that led to a shift from remote rural areas to the coastal areas (Domínguez García et al. 2012) and industrialisation of agriculture (Domínguez García 2007) left Monte, about 60% of Galicia’s territory, abandoned or in use as mono-functional forests. From 1960 onwards, despite the late start, the Galician farming sector industrialised and transformed food production through a process of homogenisation, specialisation and intensification into mainly dairy and poultry farming, increasingly disconnected from the local resource base. 4 1.3 Land planning system Land planning is regulated by Law 9/2002 of 30th December on urban planning and protection of the rural environment in Galicia and Law 10/1995 of 23rd November on land planning in Galicia in general. Due to traditional patterns of heritage private field parcels remain small sized and situated scattered over the parishes all over Galicia (29,000 km2). However, part of Galicia is managed by ‘comuneiros’, citizens who together own nearby situated Monte and are organised in Comunidades de Montes Veciñais en Man Común (CMVMCs, Neighbourhood Communities for the Common Management of Monte). These are democratic and autonomous governance authorities. At present, 2,800 CMVMCs manage a total of 700,000 hectare of Monte, which is equal to about 25 percent of the total Galician area. Law 7/2012 regulates land-use in these areas with the objective of generating income and employment and to foster the multi-functional use of Monte. Law 13/1989 of 10th October regulates its different uses (cattle and crops) (art. 22) as long as it fits to Law 7/2012 and other Spanish legislation. The strong population growth and expansion of the Vigo in combination with the many small plots owned by many citizens complicate the policy and planning of infrastructure and public functions in Vigo’s metropolitan area. Since Vigo in fact consists of several conglomerated small former towns and villages also Vigo itself is directly surrounded by Monte. Many of these still belonging to the parish and is either under private (Monte divided in small sized parcels that should be managed individually) or common management regimes (by CMVMCs). These commonly managed parts can be considered field laboratories for the creation of local employment and income: CMVMCs situated in the south western part of Galicia (Daniel Lopez, Xunta de Galicia, personal communication) started changing dominant mono-functional forestation into multi-functional land use, with impact on their multi- functionality performance such as combining food production (animal breeding, mushroom production etc.), timber, health, well-being and biodiversity. Although planning policy and management of Monte is formally not part of urban planning many public functions in Vigo (the zoo, the university, football fields) but also private enterprises (in industrial parks where the soil is owned and rented out by the parish) are located in areas owned and managed by CMVMCs. 5 Although the regional government treats Comarcas as territorial groups of municipalities that represent a common history and form a practical entity regarding organisation and planning, the Galician government until today fails to include the multi-functional land-use by grassroots initiatives and reintroduction of Monte in daily life (Domínguez García et al. 2012, Swagemakers et al. 2012, Domínguez García and Swagemakers 2013, Swagemakers et al. 2013). This holds true for the more remote rural areas as well as for Galicia’s urban and peri-urban areas. 1.4 Sketch of the pre-dominant forms of food retailing Nowadays like in many places food retailing is organised in large scale enterprises such as Carrefour (including Día, Mercadona and Eroski) but also Froiz, Gadis, Al Campo et cetera. Further there are the smaller regional enterprises such as fruit stores (e.g. Frutas Katuxa) and poultry selling points (Corén, all over Galicia). In general all shops have a fresh fish, meat and cheese and fruit department. Some of the smaller chains occasionally sell locally produced seasonal products like e.g. chestnuts. Next to these more conventional supermarkets of large food chains one finds so-called market places in which small food stores sell fresh fish, meat and fruit products. Further fresh food produce reaches consumers through small organic and health shops (e.g. Tabertenda, ABCBio), farmers with home delivery service (e.g. Cesta Fresca, Daiqui), consumer cooperatives (e.g. Árbore) and small traditional groceries. Finally, fresh food produce is also exchanged in informal citizen networks: neighbours and families who exchange surpluses from their kitchen gardens. Vigo as largest fish port in Europe makes the Galician eat a lot of fish and sea fruits. Also meat is very much appreciated when produced in Galicia; Galicia is also a large meat producer (beef and poultry production).