Docuseries portrays the complexities of farming near residential communities
“Farming on the Urban Edge,” a docuseries directed by Washington State University Extension faculty member Justin O’Dea, portrays the complexities of farming near residential communities
By Angela Sams,
College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences
WSU Insider
Aug 31
Excerpt:
Peri-urban agriculture includes farms near cities that compete for land, water, energy, and labor, resources that can also be used to satisfy the requirements of the urban population. Farms in these geographical transition areas often face viability challenges related to land-use pressures and complex governance issues.
“Peri-urban agriculture is frequently underrecognized and underrepresented because it doesn’t exactly fit with commodity-scale agriculture or urban agriculture,” O’Dea said. “It often gets left out of grant-funded initiatives and lacks the collective support provided by commodity commissions or associations in commodity crop-producing regions.”
Yet peri-urban agriculture is key in connecting urban populations with food production, farmland stewardship, land-based livelihoods, and the importance of food security. It can also have high economic returns resulting from high-value crops and products, agritourism, and other business approaches that capitalize on urban markets, O’Dea said.
The docuseries, filmed in April and July 2021, was initially intended to help compensate for the lack of in-person interaction between growers at the inaugural “Farming on the Urban Edge” conference, which was conducted virtually because of the pandemic. The conference consisted of five monthly sessions from November 2021 to March 2022, each with a panel of farmers and organization representatives.
