Mapping the uneven geography of food poverty in urban and rural areas: a territorial analysis within the metropolitan city of Rome, Italy

In Italy, food insecurity or poverty represents one of the various forms of inequality that mainly characterizes both urban and rural contexts, often caused by economic difficulties in accessing food. In the city of Rome, the phenomenon manifests itself on different levels, caused by territorial socioeconomic inequalities, mostly affecting the city’s eastern neighbourhoods. Aiming at understanding how food poverty is articulated differently in urban and rural contexts and which actions exist for countering it, this paper presents the case of the metropolitan city of Rome's to understand and map the food aid considering the geographic-spatial dimension. The study, undertaken by the Observatory on Food Insecurity and Poverty (OIPA) is based on a quantitative analysis of 2023 data coming from the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), applying three indexes developed by OIPA: food aid assistance index, land coverage index and food aid intervention diversification index. The analysis allowed the identification of various patterns in food aid needs, between rural and urban areas within the Metropolitan city of Rome. Economic and geographical contexts are drivers in index fluctuations, with some territorial peculiarities that open horizons for research to understand particular determinants of food insecurity and related interventions in those areas.