Aims and agenda

Appropriate methods for urban agriculture. Research, policy development, planning, implementation and evaluation. (E-conference - February 4-16 2002)

Background

Urban Agriculture (UA, includes intra- and peri-urban agriculture) is an ancient practice but a recent focus of attention for a wide range of professionals associated with urban management, urban planning and agriculture. In the past these fields have been quite separate, and have elaborated their own approaches and methods associated with policy development, planning, research and monitoring and evaluation. We believe that to strengthen and develop agriculture in the urban environment, there is a pressing need not only to explore the adaptation of the wide range of methods used in rural agricultural research and development, but also to provide an innovative integration of these procedures with the specifically urban methods applied to understanding planning and policy issues.

These considerations have led us to identify six thematic areas through which to identify and debate appropriate methods for urban and peri-urban agriculture. These themes are explained below.

As part of a step-wise process of elaborating a set of integrated methods in these areas, over the past few months coordinators for each of these topics pulled together and synthesized current methodological experiences. During a recently held expert consultation workshop in Nairobi, these syntheses papers and the case studies were discussed and debated leading to revised synthesis papers. These papers are provided as starting points for this electronic conference.

Through the pooling, reviewing and systematizing of these experiences it should be possible to develop an enriched body of methods which urban and agricultural professionals can use to strengthen urban agriculture in their cities.

Objective

To bring together, exchange and discuss experiences gained with a variety of methodologies applied in urban agriculture research, policy development, spatial urban planning, project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation

Participants

The conference is a platform to facilitate exchanges and discussion between:

• Researchers (universities, research centres, thematic networks)
• Urban planners, representatives of municipal departments and policy advisors
• Senior staff of NGO's, international and local projects, and other persons that have gained experience with the application of methodologies of relevance for this conference

Thematic areas

The conference organisers identified six thematic areas through which to identify and debate appropriate methods for urban agriculture. See Discussion Papers for a synthesis and discussion paper on each of these themes.

These themes are:

• TOPIC 1: Methods for situation analysis/diagnosis and baseline studies on UA
  The theme will consider (especially participatory/innovative) methods that can be used to analyse the characteristics of local UA systems, their productivity and the technologies applied, the type of producers and clients of each UA system and their needs/priorities, backward and forward linkages, use of soil, water and other resources, environmental and health impacts experienced, etc.
• TOPIC 2: Methods for participatory UA policy formulation and planning
  This theme will concentrate on methods that are suited for a participatory and ‘early implementation’ approach to policy formulation and planning, like stakeholder analysis, building of platforms for exchange of knowledge, negotiation and joint planning of priority action plans, participatory budgeting, mechanisms for intersectoral cooperation and concerted action, forms of public-private partnerships among others.
• TOPIC 3: Methods for Integration of UA in urban land use planning
  This theme reviews the methods that facilitate the integration of UA in the process of land use planning: the use of G.I.S-sytems, the integration of urban agriculture in zonification plans and other methods for land and water allocation.
• TOPIC 4: Methodology for participatory technology development in UA
  This theme focuses on participatory methods for technology development and diffusion in UA, including use of multiple sources of knowledge in the identification and screening of promising technologies, the participatory testing and adaptation of the most promising technologies under local urban farming conditions, use of adult education techniques in technology evaluation, and participatory diffusion of the results of the local experimentation.
• TOPIC 5: Methodology for monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of UA
  This theme focuses on appropriate methods to monitor and evaluate the impacts of UA on respectively food security and nutrition, health, income, employment and urban ecology. There is an emphasis on methods which are process oriented, participatory and concerned with joint learning, negotiation and consensual decision-making.
• TOPIC 6:Methodology for marketing assessments and micro-enterprise development related to UA
  Methods discussed in this theme relate to the analysis of consumers demands (food and non-food products), analysis of marketing channels and flows, assessment of linkages of UA enterprises to sources of credit, technical advice, labour, marketing information and other services; analysis of strengths and weaknesses of existing micro and small enterprises involved in input supply, production, processing and marketing of food and non-food products and methods to increase their efficiency and improve the safety and quality of the products offered.