Why we cannot talk about food policies without involving street vendors

According to our last global report, food and drinks are among the top sold goods by StreetNet members. It is not surprising: wandering around in any market all over the world, both in urban and rural areas, vendors can be seen selling fresh fruits and vegetables, meat or fish, fresh drinks and juices, or delicious cooked meals. Such foods are often both easily accessible, a source of income for the vendors themselves, and affordable for people of various levels of purchasing power. Street vendors and people working in the so called “informal food sector”, that comprises agricultural practices, fisheries and farming, are an imprescindible pillar of the food system of several countries.

What are food security, food safety and food sovereignty?

According to the World Bank, that bases its definition on the conclusion of the 1996 Food Summit, food security is “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. It involves four dimensions: physical availability of food (from the supply side), economic and physical access to food, food utilization (meaning “good care and feeding practices, food preparation, diversity of the diet and intra-household distribution of food”), and finally the stability of all these dimensions over time. Food safety, on the other hand, has to do more with the hygienic standards. The Food and Agriculture organisation of the UN defines it as “a science-based discipline, process or action that prevents food from containing substances that could harm a person’s health. Food safety aims to have food that is safe to eat”.

Some social movements now consider the concept of food security to be somewhat obsolete. “Noble in its intent, food security treated those affected by hunger as objects of compassion, risked reducing them to passive consumers of food produced elsewhere”, states a manifesto published by the organization La Via Campesina. The insistence on food security has also been a shield for environmental, social neo-colonial exploitation of several regions in the world: under the pretense of overcoming food dependency from imports, governments and multinational corporations have undergone massive projects of industrial farming that have proven to be detrimental for local farming and sustenance practices practices. The concept of food sovereignty, on the other hand, recognises and valorises the active role of workers, communities and social movements.

A widespread problem

Informal supply chains can contribute to food security and sovereignty in various dimensions: workers in informal agribusiness reach communities that are often excluded from formal distribution policies, such as the ones of large supermarkets. This is true both in the Global North and in the Global South. In the US, for example, so-called “food deserts” are very common. These are areas where it is impossible to have access to fresh, nutritious and quality food in a reasonable travelling distance. “Many street vendors sell fresh produce and food in places where grocery stores can be scarce in the US” writes Kinjo Kiema on Prism. Food deserts are a well known problem in the US, being a cause of a variety of health issues, affecting especially low-income citizens.

Looking at the Global South, informal traders and “natural markets” are a key element for the sustenance of urban communities. The other aspect to take into account is the livelihood of the vendors and the role that informal food economy plays sustaining a large part of the population of several countries. “Selling and buying street food is an everyday practice for the millions of urban poor living in cities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It is also a diverse practice, including ready-to-eat, processed, and fresh foods and beverages sold by formal and informal vendors who may be mobile or operating from stalls or kiosks; while the food can be consumed at home, on location or at the workplace. Demand for street food by the urban poor is driven by a lack of access to fresh produce, limitedly available time, and an absence of the necessary infrastructures and resources (e.g., water, energy) for preparing food at home”, writes scholar Raffaele Vignola in a paper titled Street food environmental sustainability in a urbanizing global south: A social practice perspective.

In a series of papers titled Consuming Urban Poverty, that looks at the link between urban policies, demographics and food justice, researchers of WIEGO, the African center for Cities and the University of Cape Town write: “In cities of the South, particularly in Africa, high levels of food and nutrition insecurity exist not as a result of a scarcity of food but due to constraints in food access. Informal food vending is a key part of food and nutrition security”.

Symbolic violence and real harassment

One of the main problems impacting street and market vendors worldwide is the one of stigma for occupying public places: vendors, especially informal ones, are perceived (and narrated in the mainstream media) as a public health concern. As a consequence, they are targets of official harassment campaigns by city authorities (as it is the case, for example, of Peru and Nepal in recent years) and unofficial harassment practices by police officers or other authorities.

Vendors in Kenya participating in a training about food safety. Credits: Anthony Kwache

If we look specifically at food vendors we can see that the narrative is often centered about the lack of safety and health standards for the produce they sell: even in some academic papers vending stalls are described as a safety hazard. There are some considerations to be made in this regard: first, as the organisation GRAIN reports “the findings from research around global livestock diseases for example contradict such unfounded claims, which are regularly promoted by food and meat companies and the international agencies”. Furthermore, in the case of real health issues in markets workers are usually the first and main victims of such conditions. Health issues in food markets are not the result of mismanagement, ignorance or malice of the vendors, but of lack of efforts and investment in decent working conditions.

A community approach to food safety

A community based approach to food safety ensures that vendors can become an active and integral part of the process. One notable example comes from Kenya. Following a consultation workshop for informal food sector representatives that took place in Nairobi in June 2024 organized by The African Union and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, our Kenyan affiliates developed a project in Nairobi.

“Recently, we initiated work with food vendors in markets and informal settlements to strengthen their practices and knowledge” recounts Anthony Kwache, leader KENASVIT and member of the International Council of StreetNet. “Toward the end of October and into early November, I facilitated a capacity-building session on legal frameworks related to food and vending in the Mukuru Market, supported by a partner organisation. This training covered critical areas such as food safety and supply chain management in informal settlements. As a result, food vendors are now more aware of the laws and regulations concerning food handling, storage, and safety. “They have taken on greater responsibility for maintaining the cleanliness of their operational areas”.

Another important aspect is the peer learning experience “We organized an exchange visit between vendors from Mukuru and Muthurwa Market, fostering peer learning. I believe that when vendors are educated about legal frameworks and food safety, they are better equipped to address issues like proper storage and maintaining a clean environment—factors that are essential for ensuring food safety”.

The involvement of workers in the process of food governance is considered an essential element in achieving sustainability of supply chain and food sovereignty. Only in this way can we make sure that practices and concepts developed at the international level are not applied in extractive and discriminatory ways, and are useful to improve the quality of life and working conditions of the very people who produce and distribute the food.