Geography
Urban Farming
Urban farming refers to the practice of growing and cultivating food within urban areas, often using innovative techniques such as rooftop gardens, hydroponics, and vertical farming. It aims to increase access to fresh produce, promote sustainability, and reduce the environmental impact of food production and transportation in cities. Urban farming also contributes to community engagement and education about food systems.
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10 Key excerpts on "Urban Farming"
eBook - PDF- Christopher Boone, Ali Modarres(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Temple University Press(Publisher)
It is estimated that 800 million people worldwide practice urban agriculture (United Nations Development Programme 1996). Defining urban agriculture is complicated by the fuzzy and imprecise definitions of “urban” (see Chapter 1). More agricultural activity certainly occurs on the boundaries (fuzzy themselves) of urban conglomerations than in densely built-up cores. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) defines urban agriculture as “a practice located within or on the fringe of a town, a city or a metropolis, which uses human and material resources to grow, process, and distribute a diversity of food and non-food products to those intra and periurban areas on a daily basis” (IDRC 2003). Many development organizations include agriculture on the urban fringe, or “periurban” zones, as part of the definition. The difficulty with this definition is that it does not define a town, city, or metropolis, or the extent of periurban areas. If urban agriculture is to be treated as something extraordinary, or as different from typical farming, it should refer to farming activity within the built-up areas of cities, in places where one would not expect farming to occur. In this sense, we can define urban agriculture as farming in densely built-up cities where farm-ing is not typically practiced. Normally farming does not occur in high-density urban areas because the land is very valuable and is best suited for other purposes. Von Thunen’s explorations into agricultural land use made the arguments very clear. The bid-rent curves from the urban core help to define and delineate land use (Figure 3.1). While an elegant theory, the reality is dif-ferent, as the bid-rent curve is interrupted by natural features, such as rivers or undevelopable land, or collective decisions to protect land for specific uses, such as parks.
eBook - PDF- Julian Cribb(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Urban farms : the simplest urban farms use traditional soil culture, with crops grown in beds, planter boxes and pots on spare land, in allotments or on the roofs and sides of buildings. Techniques range from conventional agriculture and horticulture using artificial fertilisers and chemicals to fully organic and permaculture systems. Besides fruit and vegetables, urban agriculture often encompasses the husbandry of small and large animals, poultry, fish, trees, urban beekeeping and insect farming, and some specialised grain production. 26 Fertile soils are usually created by composting urban organic waste or vermiculture (worm farms). Sky farms : otherwise known as vertical farms, these are purpose- designed or redeveloped multi-storey buildings which grow crops in vertical stacks, usually under artificial lighting and with recycled irrigation water. Because of their size and cost (up to $50 million or more) such enterprises are usually corporate ventures. A variant is ‘integrated agriculture’ which takes place within large buildings, integrated around The Urban Food Revolution 267 their other purposes as offices, manufacturing, retailing or residential structures. The technique of integrating food production with living and working space in a building is known as ‘agritecture’ and is a new industry shaping the urban food revolution. 27 Vertical farming has already caught the eye of defence planners, who argue it will be as important to protect these essential urban food sources from war and terrorism as sea lanes and transport hubs which deliver food to concentrated populations. 28 Hydroponics : also known as ‘fertigation’, is the growing of plants in a liquid solution of minerals and nutrients. This can either be organic (i.e. extracted and concentrated from composted wastes) or inorganic (using synthetic fertilisers).
eBook - ePub- Antoinette WinklerPrins, Antoinette M.G.A. WinklerPrins(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- CAB International(Publisher)
urban agriculture is the production, processing and marketing of food and related products in urban and peri-urban areas, usually through intensive cultivation and for consumption in the same urban or peri-urban area. The existing literature covers a wide range of practice that some call ‘gardening’ and some call ‘agriculture’. Gardening usually connotes leisure, aesthetics and recreation, small scale, and in some parts of the world is women’s domain. In contrast, farming typically connotes production for subsistence or commercial purposes. It refers to a livelihood, a way of life, and is usually practised on a relatively larger scale than gardening. In many parts of the world, farming is associated with men and is considered a male domain. The reality is that, in practice, much of what we have traditionally talked about in UA is gardening, but it has taken on elements of farming and there is semantic fluidity between the two. Neither term is entirely satisfactory for encompassing what actually occurs, and therefore I suggest that instead of using the terms ‘gardening’ and/or ‘farming’ that we refer to this suite of activities as ‘urban cultivation’ and refer to the people who practise it as ‘urban cultivators’. This is difficult to do given the deep embeddedness of the term ‘urban agriculture’, which is why in this volume there will be a mix.Urban cultivation encompasses plants being grown for some utility, but also includes activities that involve animals. This may range from home gardeners keeping or enabling bee foraging in their yards through the planting of appropriate flowers to the keeping (legally or not) of chickens or other fowl, to the maintenance of cows (usually for milk) or even horses and other animals. Although more common in the GS, the keeping of poultry as part of the home-garden system is gaining traction in many cities in the GN as the health benefits of free-range and locally produced eggs and meat have become clear. Activists in cities large and small in the GN are working on the legal issues of keeping poultry, while those in the GS work to keep such activities from becoming illegal.
eBook - PDFUrban Agriculture and Rural Agriculture
The International Market
- Stephanya Lynn JonasLabee(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Delve Publishing(Publisher)
INTRODUCTION TO URBAN AGRICULTURE CHAPTER 1 CONTENTS 1.1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 2 1.2. Definition ........................................................................................... 6 1.3. Causes Of Urban Agriculture ............................................................ 12 1.4. Miscellaneous Aspects Of Urban Agriculture .................................... 16 1.5. Practices Of Sustainable Urban Agriculture ....................................... 20 1.6. Enhancing Urban Agriculture ............................................................ 25 1.7. Conclusion ....................................................................................... 30 References ............................................................................................... 31 Urban Agriculture and Rural Agriculture: The International Market 2 Growing food in urban environment is what can be generally classified as Urban Agriculture. It includes farms in cities, greenhouse on rooftops, school gardens and many more. Developed nations like the US grow edible items under multiple ways. The gardens are not necessarily small but are big where the space allows. Many vacant areas have been converted to farms in the wake of awareness of growing need of organic food. In contrast to the rural areas, agriculture in urban regions is not done on commercial level in most places. Although, the families living in the cities and individuals find it as a relieving practice and it is a way for them to con -nect to the community. 1.1. INTRODUCTION Talking about urban agriculture, it is generally evaluated on the basis of people it can provide food. If we take the city as a whole, urban agriculture is analyzed on the awareness that it brings to the people of the city about agriculture (Figure 1.1).
eBook - ePub- Jules Janick(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
Quantifying the direct value of these ancillary economic benefits only captures part of their potential to impact a place. In addition to converting vacant land, some new housing developments are also fostering urban farm sites as desirable neighborhood focal points. These neighborhoods with a farm at the center generated the term “agrihoods” (Murphy 2014; Gittelsohn 2015). Yes, farming, for some, is the new golf. The struggle to make an urban farm profitable contrasts the desire for communities to benefit from it, and there is not always a willingness or means for the market to pay for the true value of urban agriculture. Thus, urban agriculture has a clear place in a sustainable economy providing benefits to communities. It is not clear, however, that the current economy can sustain urban agriculture if these benefits go unappreciated.Urban agriculture has clear potential to spur the development of local economies in developing countries, providing both increased food security and significant job opportunities (Agbonlahor et al. 2007). Huge greenhouse operations have sprung up in parts of East Africa in the last few decades, particularly in the Kenyan Highlands near Nairobi. Their impact is somewhat contentious because these operations almost exclusively target export markets, mostly for flowers, and they withdraw large volumes of groundwater and other resources with potentially disastrous long-term consequences (Harper et al. 2011), but they do provide large numbers of jobs (Dolan and Sutherland 2002), even though they do little to increase local food supplies to local communities that spend most of their income on food (Mougeot 2005). Support for urban agriculture projects that explicitly target low-income and malnourished local populations are needed.Along with urban farms and other near-city small farms come a range of associated businesses. Local foods spur the development of food hubs, farmers' markets, local food delivery services, and the supply of urban food pantries, each of which serves to increase the supply of local foods, the provision of jobs and increases urban food security.
eBook - PDFCities of Farmers
Urban Agricultural Practices and Processes
- Julie C. Dawson, Alfonso Morales, Julie C. Dawson, Alfonso Morales(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- University Of Iowa Press(Publisher)
Vertical farming, the retrofitting of the interiors of vacant buildings to create a year-round growing space in a controlled atmosphere with access to light, water, and tempera-ture control, offers a strategy for urban farms to use these spaces. Growing within or upon these structures allows urban farms to remain in proximity to 118 PRODUCTION their target clientele, markets, employees, and volunteers. Locating within blighted areas also allows the organizations to achieve secondary goals, such as revitalizing an ailing community through job creation, social engagement, education, and beautification. Urban farmers have further expanded their options for longer-term sus-tainable farm locations with the integration of rooftop farming. Historical-ly, rooftop plantings have consisted of ornamental plants, which have been shown to provide benefits with respect to enhancing structural cooling and decreasing water runoff. However, urban farmers have adapted these spaces to include the production of food, using the sites to supply produce to urban restaurants, retail food markets, or schools (Oxenham and King 2010). Issues with retrofitting existing structures for these purposes limit the expansion of these types of farms, as the original construction may not have allowed for the load-bearing capacity necessary for the production of crops. Additionally, production challenges exist as a result of high winds, high temperatures, shallow growing media, and access to water. Some urban growers have addressed challenges with sustainability of urban land access by acquiring larger acreages of rural land, allowing a greater scale of food production. The market and community development opportunities of the urban production site combined with the increased produce volumes and stable land tenure provided by rural acreages allow urban-agriculture operations greater access to markets, particularly wholesale and institutional markets.
eBook - PDFUrban Ecology
Strategies for Green Infrastructure and Land Use
- Kimberly Etingoff(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Apple Academic Press(Publisher)
Offer gardening and urban agricul-ture activities within existing pro-grams, particularly during summer. 258 Urban Ecology: Strategies for Green Infrastructure and Land Use Across the globe, urban agriculture systems have evolved to meet the needs of residents in contemporary cities. Many speci fi c examples have been documented, mostly in developing regions such as sub-Saharan Af-rica, Latin America, and Southeast Asia [1,19,55]. In these regions, the focus is often on improving the livelihoods of the poor in urban areas by providing food for consumption, reducing costs associated with food [56], diversifying activities for producing income [17], and empowering women [50,57]. Urban agriculture can also be an effective strategy for responding to a crisis. The most impressive example of urban agriculture in recent years comes from Havana, Cuba, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which ended the extensive trade between the countries [58]. Havana suffered from the loss of earnings from their exports (esp. sugar-cane), as well as from the lost imports of petrochemicals, machinery, and imported food [30,58]. From 1997 to 2003, Havana experienced an aver-age of 38% growth in urban agriculture annually, resulting in a 13-times increase in the production of vegetables over the 8-year period. Much of the production has taken place in “organoponicos”, which are raised beds with a mix of soil and organic matter that can be constructed on almost any plot of land. Today, much of the available land has been transformed into urban agriculture, totaling more than 35,000 ha within the boundaries of Havana (including urban fringes and nearby rural areas) [30]. Many cities in developed countries have also recognized the extensive bene fi ts of urban agriculture, and planning or policy strategies have been developed to support food production within the city boundaries, including a strong emphasis on the social functions provided by urban agriculture.
eBook - PDF- Mohamed Samer(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- IntechOpen(Publisher)
Keywords: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Design/Build, Interdisciplinary Learning, Rooftop Farming 1. Introduction Urban agriculture exists in a variety of forms worldwide. There are various ways how the food is grown and sold. Production, for example, varies from large-scale plots on private or corpo‐ rate property to small-scaled applications for private or public consumption. Crops are grown in urban areas for sales in local farmers markets, for private use, for restaurants or grown through © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. community- or municipal-supported efforts. Distribution varies from private sales from the back of a truck roadside to public selling of food, crops and marketable goods in farmers markets or local stores. Urban agriculture exists on private and public land as well as on rooftops exposed to the elements or concealed in greenhouses. Urban agriculture exists as permanent ventures as well as temporary or seasonal events by small groups, organizations or private individu‐ als. Urban agriculture has historically had strong ties to small-scale grassroots movements and ties to agrarian beginnings, but recently in North America and abroad, there is greater need for people living in cities to reconnect with nature, taste fresh seasonal produce, socialize and learn [1]. One unique example of a municipal level (top down) production of crops outside North America is the Edible City Project at the village of Andernach, Germany [2]. There, the public right-of-way is used in the town Center to grow fruits, vegetables, cut flowers and some produce such as fresh chicken eggs. Permaculture concepts are implemented to maximize healthy yields and reduce environmental risks.
- Vijay Singh, Bhadranie Thoradeniya, Basant Maheshwari(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Springer Open(Publisher)
The notion of ‘Agricultural retention’ relates to protection of farmland at a regional scale, while ‘urban agriculture’ idea refers to local food production on any available land such as vacant land, brown field sites, home gardens etc. at a local scale within a settlement (Duany et al. 2010 pp. 7–8). ‘Agricultural urbanism’ originated from Ebenezer Howard’s garden cities conceptual framework and visualises a working agricultural farm on which resident community and businesses are economically dependent and ‘food production forms the basis for urban density’ (DPZ 2014c ). Southlands devel-opment with an area of 218 ha in Vancouver, British Columbia is an example of a master planned community based on the ‘Agricultural Urbanism’ model (DPZ 2014c ; Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) 2010 ). Principles of the ‘Agrarian Urbanism’ model link food efficient designs to new urbanism principles. This model initiates an intentional sustainable agrarian society and community development with a complete food system such as production, distribution and disposal (Duany et al. 2010 pp. 7–8). Hampstead is an area of 168 ha of traditional neighbourhood development in Montgomery, Alabama, USA which supports principles of ‘Agrarian Urbanism’ and ‘Smart Code’ or a transect-based zoning and planning model (DPZ 2014d ). ‘ Agrarian Urbanism is a concept that involves food not as a means of mak-ing a living , but as a basis for making a life and structuring the places in which we live ’ (DPZ 2014a ). In this chapter, a total of two master planned community case studies: Serenbe, Atlanta and Prairie Crossing, Illinois from the USA are analysed following ‘Agrarian Urbanism’ principles to identify how food urbanism principles are incorporated in design and planning. Fig. 22.2 Typology of ‘Continuous productive landscapes’ (Source: Grimm 2009 , Drawn by: Sumita Ghosh) S. Ghosh 373 The ‘Agrarian Urbanism’ approach is intrinsically linked to ‘The Transect’ con-cept (DPZ 2014b ).
eBook - ePubCities and Agriculture
Developing Resilient Urban Food Systems
- Henk de Zeeuw, Pay Drechsel, Henk de Zeeuw, Pay Drechsel(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
The rural–urban relationship in the future is likely to be seen as a continuum, rather than as a relationship between discreet entities. Equally, future farming practices will most likely happen on a spectrum, combining social and economic benefits and utilizing a range of technological approaches.Regardless of the type and location of farming, it is evident that appropriate tenure agreements for farmers will be critical for long-term success, especially when involving livelihoods. Where food security is not a major driver, specific ways of adding value to intra- and peri-urban enterprises are required, especially where land is scarce and expensive.Urban policy is being developed by some cities to support and remove barriers to the implementation of intra- and peri-urban agriculture. But the speed at which intra-urban projects are being established, for example in Europe and North America, or peri-urban agriculture is being lost, for example due to urban expansion in Africa, is outstripping the speed at which supportive policy is being developed. Successful pathways to policy need to be found urgently. If this shift is to be consolidated, then the next step is to collect and disseminate metrics to encourage its further integration into intra- and peri-urban design.Summing up: During the last decade a lot has happened enabling and supporting the integration of urban agriculture into cities in the Global South and North, but a conceptual shift is still required, if agriculture is to become and remain valued as an essential element of urban infrastructure.References
Allen, A.; Apsan Frediani, A.; Wood-Hill, M. 2014. Land and planning for urban agriculture in Accra: Sustained urban agriculture or sustainable urbanization? In: Irrigated urban vegetable production in Ghana. Characteristics, benefits and risk mitigation. (Eds.) Drechsel, P.; Keraita, B. Colombo: International Water Management Institute (IWMI), 2nd edition, pp. 161–179.American Forests. 2000. CITYgreen software. Available from: www.americanforests.org/garden/treescities_sprawl/citygreen/index.html .APA (American Planning Association). 2007. Policy guide on community and regional food planning. Washington, DC: American Planning Association (APA). Available from: www.planning.org/policy/guides/adopted/food.htm
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