State of the Art Review RUAF Publications Urban Agriculture Magazine Bibliographic Database

While political support for urban agriculture has been increasing over the past years, financial support for UA producers and entrepreneurs has been more limited. The choice of the most appropriate financing mechanisms for UA should be guided by the type of UA system to be supported. Financing a non-moneterized or subsistence agriculture, a market oriented agriculture, or agriculture as a source of leisure and recreational activities will obviously need different instruments and mechanisms.
Little is known about are the informal financing mechanisms used by urban producers to facilitate access to inputs and services which allow them to expand, intensify, diversify, process, store and distribute their production? Little is known too the credit needs of the agricultural enterprises in the city. In addition, existing micro-finance institutions, banks, and micro-credit initiatives seldom allocate resources and loans to urban and peri- urban agriculture.

Few information is also available on financial mechanisms that can be used to fund urban agriculture intervention programmes and to stimulate (safe) urban agriculture and related micro-enterprise development, for example through the use of subsidies, tax incentives or inclusion in public budgets.

Further research into and consolidation of experiences related to the set up of specific municipal funds for UA, how to draw on existing rural and urban housing and micro-enterprise credit systems for UA, or improve existing producers’ informal financing strategies is needed.

• For a more extensive introduction and review of literature on this subject please go to State of the Art
• Go to RUAF publications for an overview of RUAF publications on this topic (most of which are available online). You may also view the articles in the Urban Agriculture Magazine on this topic
• Search the Bibliographic Database for other literature references, abstracts and online documents on this subject.