Introduction

Urban agriculture (UA) is being practiced by large numbers of people in both southern and northern cities.  Increasingly, governments and civil society organizations are promoting its development to enhance urban food security and health, alleviate poverty and strengthen urban livelihoods, support community building, contribute to urban environmental management and greening, and provide educational and recreational services.  This course will expand your understanding of the main concepts in urban agriculture, its main types and dimensions, its potential benefits and risks, the constraints and opportunities facing it, the stakeholders involved in it, the historical contexts shaping it, and the local, regional and international development trends bearing on it. Based on this analysis, the course will provide some tools and approaches for how UA could be analysed and supported by various urban actors.

This introductory module will start by discussing several definitions for urban agriculture. You will be asked to provide and discuss your own and current definition of urban agriculture. The module will then continue to focus on firstly comparing intra- and peri-urban, and secondly urban and rural agriculture.  It will also introduce and (graphically) show the presence of urban agriculture worldwide.

Learning objectives

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Provide a definition of urban agriculture.
• Discuss the differences, commonalities and complementarities between urban, peri-urban and rural agriculture.
• Discuss the presence of urban agriculture worldwide, providing examples from different cities.

Your first definition of urban agriculture

All of you participating in this course have already some idea of what urban agriculture entails. Before we continue to further discuss a common definition of urban agriculture, please write down in one sentence your own current definition (concept) of urban agriculture. Remember that there is no good or bad definition. Your own definition may very well reflect the types and forms of urban agriculture you find in your own city.