Written for the Good Food Movement as part of my monthly column ‘The Plate and the Planet’. Published in July 2025. Header image credit: Alia Sinha for the Good Food Movement.

Every morning, as India’s cities slowly come to life, crates of vegetables and fruits—some harvested just hours earlier in fields nearby—are unloaded in wholesale as well as Agricultural Produce Market Committee APMC (APMC) markets. Street vendors ready their carts for the day’s trade, small eateries fire up their stoves to serve the first wave of officegoers, and shelves at local grocery stores and supermarkets are stocked in preparation for the day ahead. Day after day, this quiet choreography sustains the vast and often invisible system that keeps cities fed.

But as India’s metropolises expand, these well-rehearsed routines are being reshaped. In this column, I take a closer look at what it means to feed a city fairly and sustainably in such a changing landscape.