Introduction
Last week we discussed our own, as well as more common, definitions on urban agriculture. We also looked at the differences and complementarities between rural, intra- and peri-urban agriculture and tried to identify what makes urban agriculture “urban�. This module we will propose a series of important variables to further distinguish and characterize different forms of urban agriculture, as to make its definition more “operational�. We will then place urban agriculture in the context of various global debates related to food security and sustainable urban development, underlining some of the reasons for the increasing attention to urban agriculture worldwide. At the end of the module, you will be invited to develop and post a case study on one urban agriculture system found in your own city, characterising this urban agriculture system by using the building blocks described below.
Learning Objectives
After completing this module, you will be able to:
Urban agriculture: building blocks
How is urban agriculture different from, and complementary to, rural agriculture?
We could summarise our last week’s discussions by saying that urban agriculture can be distinguished from rural agriculture by its level of integration into the urban economic and ecological system. We have seen examples of such integration, in that:
How can we best define urban agriculture locally?
Last week we have agreed on a common definition for urban agriculture. However and unless this definition of urban agriculture is further enhanced and made operational, it will still remain little useful on the scientific, technology and policy fronts. We could do so by “breaking down� the common definition of urban agriculture into the following determinants:
Please click here to open a figure showing the 6 building blocks with a brief explanation
Beyond these six building blocks, a 7th variable could also be used to differentiate among the type of people involved in urban agriculture. Although large part of the urban farmers –especially in developing countries- are from the poorer strata of the population one will often also find lower and mid- level government officials, school teachers and the like involved in agriculture, as well as richer people who are seeking a good investment for their capital or simply wanting to enjoy gardening as a recreational and leisure activity. Women constitute an important part of urban farmers, since often women have the main responsibility for feeding the households. If the plot is close to the home, farming activities can be more easily combined with their other tasks in the household, than is the case in other jobs that often require travelling to the town centre, industrial areas or “better off� residential areas.
Use of these seven building blocks can help us to better define and differentiate among different types of urban agriculture. Only then can planners, policy makers, development organisations and others better identify the need for and type of support measures appropriate for the further development of specific types of urban agriculture (see further Module 3). For instance, providing micro-credit may not be the best form of financing for a poor family that undertakes UA at subsistence level, on a plot that is not their own, and that is not capable of repaying a formal loan. On the other hand, a small cooperative composed of farmers aiming for expansion of their UA activities would need forms of financial support that go beyond the provision of free access to seeds or other equipment. Thus it is necessary to getter an in-depth conceptual understanding of these types of UA in order to select the appropriate financing mechanisms for each of these types.
Required reading: Please read paragraph 1 and 2, page 1-13 from: L. Mougeot, 2000. Urban agriculture: definition, presence, potentials and risks. In: “Growing cities, growing food: Urban agriculture on the policy agenda. A reader on urban agriculture�. N. Bakker et all. DSE, Germany. The document can be found on http://www.ruaf.org/node/55. Please go to the Theme1.pdf to download the file.
Video on urban agriculture: Please click on the following link http://www.ruaf.org/node/1127 to watch a part of the RUAF video on Urban Agriculture (2001) Based on 4 case studies from Cuenca- Ecuador, Dakar-Senegal, Dar es Salaam-Tanzania and Hanoi-Vietnam the building blocks “Location� and “Degree of market orientation� will be further illustrated in respectively clip 1 and 2. |
We have just discussed the importance of better defining (and understanding) urban agriculture locally, amongst others as a basis for outlining strategies for its development (what types of urban agriculture to support where and how?). But what may be reasons to support urban agriculture at all? Is urban agriculture not just a relict from rural-urban migration that dwindles as cities and urban economies grow? Is urban agriculture at all an issue in local and global debates on urban development?
Urban agriculture has always been part of city life. Urban citizens develop many strategies to improve their livelihoods and urban agriculture is one of them. However attention to urban agriculture has only been increasing since the past 10 years. Research undertaken in the past decade indicates that urban agriculture has multiple roles and functions and plays in important role in a.o:
Until recently, urban agriculture was given little policy attention, other then restricting it or permitting it only as a temporal use of urban land until other urban functions (housing, industrial development etc.) took over its use.Â
With the increasing urbanisation (for the first time in history over half of the population now lives in cities), as well as with the urbanisation of poverty, “sustainable development� has become a more serious concern. Since several years, urban agriculture has now been placed in the context of global and local debates on “the Millennium Development Goals�, “local food systems�, ‘the ecological footprint�, the “slow food movement�, “community food security� and “sustainable cities�. A growing number of cities and countries are now designing policies and programmes on urban agriculture as a result.
The Millennium Development Goals constitute an agenda for reducing poverty and improving livelihoods that world leaders and member states of the United Nations agreed upon at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. It contains eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ranging from:
Each of these goals has target figures, most set for 2015, and indicators designed to monitor the extent to which the target has been achieved (for more information please look at: www.unhabitat.org).
So let us see which of the goals are most directly impacted by UA activities. These are:
Goal 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 3. Promote gender equality; empower women
Goal 6. Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8. Develop a global partnership for development
Required reading: For more examples and data on how UA contributes to several of the MDGs, please read the introductory chapter “Urban agriculture and the Millennium Development Goals, page 1-13 from Mougeot, 2005. http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-84289-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html |
Local food systems and the ecological footprint
A food mile is a term used to measure the farm to market distance and cost for each and every product on the dinner plate. Seventy-five percent of what is harvested and mined from the earth is shipped to towns and cities, an area that covers only 2.5 percent of the earth’s surface, yet includes one half its human population. Natural resources are moved with massive energy and pollution costs to satisfy urban consumer and corporate demands. William Rees has defined the concept of an ecological footprint as a means to characterize the impact of human consumption on the biosphere in a single figure. More specifically, we can talk of an urban footprint. Cities require vast areas of land for their sustenance and have come to depend on large amounts of food being brought in from outside the land area they actually occupy. London (UK) for example has a surface area of some 160,000 ha. With only 12% of Britain’s population, London requires the equivalent of 40% of Britain’s entire productive land for its food (Deelstra and Girdardet, 2000). London’s ecological footprint goes beyond the close and far places from which it extracts resources, to Chicago and the U.S. Great Plains that supply its maize, to Bogota and the Colombian highlands that supply its coffee and to the Indian highlight for its tea. This inevitably raises the question of the extent to which such an urban pattern (and the lifestyle behind it) can be sustained without unacceptable environmental and social costs. The single largest component of the urban footprint is food. As countries and cities continue to urbanise, worldwide demand for land to feed cities will continue to grow. Sooner or later, cities that have come to take large-scale food imports for granted may need to consider reviving agricultural production in urban areas or the urban fringe to reduce the demand for land surface elsewhere.
Slow food movement
Slow food is a burgeoning movement (started in Italy) that favours local production, processing, marketing, and consumption. The movement was founded in the late eighties to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. They believe that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work. One of the strategies promoted by Slow Food is the direct linking of producers and consumers. We have already seen that urban agriculture can play mayor role in local food production, processing and marketing; and is ideally suited for establishing direct links between farmers and consumers. Because of its closeness to markets, urban agriculture produce additionally provides an important source of fresh (and thus better tasting?) food. For more information, please look at www.slowfood.com
Community food security
Relative to food security, community food security added several new concerns and objectives. These include:
Beyond the issue of access to food, community food security emphasizes the viability of the farms where the food is grown, ecological sustainability of its production, and more community control of food production and distribution among others. Community food initiatives can empower residents and community-based organizations and institutions by developing opportunities for them to have greater participation in and control over their food systems — including production, distribution, access, consumption, and disposition of food waste. In the long term, this would “promote a truer sense of food security than does reliance on an externally-controlled food supply�. The goal is a food system in which food production, processing, distribution are integrated to enhance local environmental, economic, social, community and nutritional health. Urban agriculture is clearly one of the foundation blocks on which the concept of community food security rests (Smit, Nasr and Ratta, 2001). For more information, please look at the web-page of the Community Food Security Coalition, http://www.foodsecurity.org/index.html).
Sustainable cities
The issue of sustainable cities began to be addressed in Rio de Janeiro with the Agenda 21 Conference (1991) and continued at the 1996 UN City Summit in Istanbul, Turkey. The Habitat Agenda, signed in Istanbul by 180 nations, reaffirmed a world-wide social commitment to improvement of quality of life in human settlements and highlighted the role and importance of local authorities in the struggle to improve human settlements. The Habitat Agenda specifically mentions the role that UA, along with other activities and initiatives can play in contributing to the future sustainability of cities:
Apart from the above mentioned roles that UA can play in creating more green and social cities, while at the same time reducing its ecological footprint, is its potential role in waste- and water-management. Urban agriculture can play a role in reducing the amount of waste by reducing the need for food packaging. It can also re-use part of the (organic) waste and wastewater produced in a city. Generally, in cities in developing countries, organic waste counts for 40-60 % of household waste, and, when composted, it can produce an excellent fertiliser. Food production by livestock eating food remainders is also a tradition in many Asian and African countries, but also in north-western Europe. The direct use of (treated) wastewater for food production can also improve the efficiency of water use, especially important in countries with limited water resources (Deelstra and Girdardet, 2000).
A frequent argument, still used by urban planners is that agriculture should be confined to rural areas, as it can interfere with more productive use/ rent of land by other, more profitable economic activities (such as housing or industries). The overview above however highlights that urban agriculture does not hamper, but could be part of urban development. Urban agriculture can be either located on areas of land not suited for other functions (road-sides, steep slopes, areas of land under electricity lines), can be combined with a range of non-agricultural land use (multifunctional use of parks) and can be well-integrated in housing settlements (studies have found that property values in New York where higher in areas located close to community gardens). Â
We have seen that urban agriculture may indeed contribute to more food secure, productive and environmentally healthy cities, reason why growing attention is being given to urban agriculture by various organisations and on various (international) agendas. As a result of such developments, as well as the pressure by local groups, urban farmers and non-governmental organisations, many city authorities have acknowledged the potential of urban agriculture and are collaborating with other local stakeholders in efforts to maximise the benefits of urban agriculture, while reducing its potential associated risks. Urban agriculture is not a panacea however. It may pose health and environmental risks, for example as a result of the use of agrochemicals, non-treated organic waste and wastewaters, and lack of hygiene in food processing and marketing activities. The benefits of urban agriculture as well its potential risks will be further discussed in Module 5 and 6.
| Please reflect When reading local or national Newspapers, listing to TV, radio or media shows, please note of reference is made to one of the debates described above. If you were to bring urban agriculture under the attention in your city, to which debate(s) would you refer? |
Required readings:
NB: You will need Acrobat Reader to be able to access the first mentioned reading.
References