Research on the health, social, economic and ecological impacts of urban agriculture is an important issue. Urban agriculture is a relatively young field of research and policy makers and urban agriculture practitioners are requesting more research data and M & E information as a basis for policy decisions and project design and management.
Important issues regarding M & E of urban agriculture are:
- The need for well integrated and multidisciplinary studies on urban agriculture on household, community and city level
- Enhanced use of participatory and qualitative methods and more attention to measuring the less tangible effects of urban agriculture (e.g. effects on community development, living climate, landscape, etcetera)
- Adaptation of available M & E methods in agriculture to the typical urban conditions and enhancing their gender sensitivity
- The need to develop standardized but low cost and easy to apply M & E methods, allowing comparative M & E studies in a larger number of cities and countries
- Linking more directly datagathering and analysis and the use of this information in policy making, action planning and implmentation.
