Land: Special Issue “Why Urban Agriculture Matters”
UA does not only supply fresh and healthy foods to households, markets, restaurants and grocery stores but also saves on transport mileages, empowers the poor by broadening their food safety networks and generating some income, encourages social cohesion and contributes to a pleasant environment by transforming grey cities to green.
Editors: Dr. Ben Sonneveld, Dr. Augustin Aoudji, Dr. Amani Alfarra
Land
Dec 2022
Dear Colleagues,
Propelled by a rapid urbanization, city administrations in middle and low income countries face many challenges to provide basic utilities and secure food and nutrition diversity in ever growing metropoles. Challenges include the provision of basic utilities that promote sustainable economic growth with remunerative employment and the creation of safety nets for those who are unemployed or whose income is too low to buy good food. Indeed, commodities that are regular staples in rural areas, such as fruits, vegetables and dairy products, can become unaffordable luxuries to poorer urban inhabitants. In higher income countries too, there are concerns about the food systems in an urbanized world.
Here, the focus is less on economic growth and safety nets, but rather on the increasingly louder calls for food sovereignty in sync with a withdrawal from food industry and a sometimes spiritually motivated return to the basics of fresh and healthy food production with short supply chains and transparent farm-to-fork linkages. Urban Agricultures (UA) seems to be a spontaneous and appropriate response to these typical urban developments. UA represents a myriad of production techniques that vary from fully commercialized multistore food factories and green houses with hydroponic systems to private home gardens and placements of single baskets in the back yard or at the balcony. In between, experimental Zfarming and small scale specialized farm initiatives and cooperatively organized allotment gardens are appearing more and more, especially in the outer belts of cities.
UA does not only supply fresh and healthy foods to households, markets, restaurants and grocery stores but also saves on transport mileages, empowers the poor by broadening their food safety networks and generating some income, encourages social cohesion and contributes to a pleasant environment by transforming grey cities to green. Yet, despite the multitude of advantages and well-intended initiatives, UA does not develop at the expected speed. It is difficult to find suitable places with access to land and water where the competition with built-up initiatives can be settled. Moreover, some cities have prohibitive policies and ordinances that stymies UA initiatives. Tackling the issue of how UA can play its positive role in the era of rapid urbanization requires a deeper understanding of the main opportunities and constraints for UA developments. The journal Land invites you to contribute to a Special Issue to present the newest methodologies and case studies that should support the development of UA to its full potential.
Three papers:
The Socio-Cultural Benefits of Urban Agriculture: A Review of the Literature
The Role of Urban Agriculture Technologies in Transformation toward Participatory Local Urban Planning in Rafsanjan
How Does Urban Farming Benefit Participants? Two Case Studies of the Garden City Initiative in Taipei
