Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: Fantasies, Hope and Compelling Narratives
- 2 The Expansive Nature of Platforms
- 3 Hacking Mobility
- 4 Digital Food Dialogues
- 5 Cyborg Activism
- 6 Platform Practices and the Public Imagination
- 7 Conclusion: On Understanding Situated Platform Urbanism
- Notes
- References
- Index
4 - Digital Food Dialogues
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: Fantasies, Hope and Compelling Narratives
- 2 The Expansive Nature of Platforms
- 3 Hacking Mobility
- 4 Digital Food Dialogues
- 5 Cyborg Activism
- 6 Platform Practices and the Public Imagination
- 7 Conclusion: On Understanding Situated Platform Urbanism
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
The travels of a banana
In a CNN interview in November 2019, Peter Njonjo, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twiga Foods in Kenya, revealed some startling facts about the journey of a banana. In Europe, the fruit travels 4,000 km from Latin America to a shelf in a supermarket and costs a dollar. A banana in Kenya travels about 300–400 km within the country and will cost the same dollar. His business partner, Grant Brooke, gave a succinct summary of the connection between technology and food:
The main reason markets do not work here is because there lacks a proper market infrastructure to support the 5 million population in Nairobi. As a result, produce goes bad and there are massive delays at the markets. This means that the cost of the same gets passed to the customer. … The cost of a banana in Nairobi which has come from Meru or Taveta is the same as the price of a banana in London, which has come from Guatemala. … This fundamental flaw points to an inefficiency that only technology can solve.
In this quote from an online interview, what becomes apparent is the role of technology in enabling real-time connection, which has positive implications for the management of the food value chain. However, what is also implied in this example is the central role that infrastructure plays in the distribution of food. Thus, the connection between the urban infrastructure that underpins the flow of goods or services and the digital infrastructure that enables flows of information and data will be explored in detail in this chapter. Food serves both as a lens to do so and as an extension of the concerns surrounding climate change given the primacy of the issue of food insecurity as a consequence of global warming. The disjuncture in the cost of two bananas described by Brooke and Njonjo reveals many facets of the growing food crisis in African cities, recently worsened by COVID-19. According to Njonjo, Brooke and others, the problem is the food value chain and the economic relations associated with that.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Disrupted UrbanismSituated Smart Initiatives in African Cities, pp. 49 - 69Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2023