Street food and urban food security

With the world population growing to 9.2 million by 2050 and a rapid pace of urbanisation, urban food security is going to be a major challenge, especially for developing countries. Increasing urbanisation would be accompanied by rising incomes on one hand and rising poverty and gap between the rich and the poor in urban areas on the other hand. This rising poverty would intensify the issue of food insecurity in urban areas. Considering the legal and institutional constraints to practise of urban agriculture and irrelevant supermarkets, street foods seem to be a viable option for ensuring urban food security, especially for the urban poor. It would not only be an important source of insurance for the poor against hunger but would also provide an opportunity for the enhancement of a localised food system which acts in parallel with the more commercially viable linear food system operated by the supermarkets.