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Urban
agriculture (UA) is probably as old as our cities, but never received
much attention from scientists until recently. It is estimated that,
today, some 800 million people are engaged in urban agriculture worldwide
(Smit 1996). Of these, 200 million are market producers.
Nowadays, UA is very much in the limelight of research from many different
angles, looking at themes as urban food security and poverty eradication;
urban health; urban planning; and integrated city development. What
began as isolated surveys by individual social scientists in the early
1990s gradually evolved towards institutional projects led by multidisciplinary
teams. As a result, there is much more information available now and
local authorities have become more aware of the growth and potential
of agriculture in and around cities. At this point of time, UA is
still a fast-evolving field, in which concept development is still
occurring at a high pace.
UA is different
from, and complementary to, rural agriculture in local food systems.
One of its main characteristics is its integration into the local
urban economic and ecological system. However, unless this dimension
is enhanced and made operational, the concept will remain little useful
on the scientific, technology and policy fronts.
UA is growing out of its ability to assist with, resolve or cope with
diverse development challenges. Its strength resides in the fact that
it often finds its origin in community spirit and existing strong
social cohesion. Much remains to be examined, though, for the up-
and downstream effects of UA in the local economy are largely unknown
and could be considerable.
The expression
'urban agriculture' (UA) has now been adopted by UN agencies such
as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). It is important
to distinguish between agriculture 'in the urban zone' and 'periurban'
agriculture, though the precise definitions of these zones vary widely.
A number of definitions circulate, in which there is a different emphasis
on the following characteristics: types of economic activities, food/non-food
categories of products and subcategories, intraurban and periurban
character of location, types of areas where it is practised, types
of production systems, product destination and production scale.
The competition
of UA with other land uses has been put forward as typical for UA
leading to one possible definition: UA is that form of agriculture
carried out within or on the outskirts of a city where non-agricultural
use of local resources is a real option (Moustier 1996). With this
in mind, urban planning issues must be explicitly addressed in the
framework of this work package.
UA is distinguished
from rural agriculture through its integration into the urban economic
and ecological system. It is not its location that distinguishes UA
from rural agriculture, but the fact that is embedded in and interacting
with the urban ecosystem.
Thus, we can define UA as an industry located within (intraurban)
or on the fringe (periurban) of a town, a city or a metropolis, which
grows or raises, processes and distributes a diversity of food and
non-food products, (re-)using largely human and material resources,
products and services found in and around that urban area, and in
turn supplying human and material resources, products and services
largely to that area (Mougeot 2000).
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Bibliographic References
Mougeot,
L.J.A. 2000. Urban agriculture: definition, presence, potentials and
risks. In: Bakker, N. et al. (eds). 2000. Growing cities, growing
food: urban agriculture on the policy agenda. Deutsche Stiftung fuer
internationale Entwicklung (DSE), Feldafing, Germany.
Moustier,
P. (Cirad), 1996. Organization in the Brazzaville vegetable market.
Doctoral Thesis, Wye College, University of London.
Smit, J.,
A. Ratta & J. Nasr. 1996. Urban agriculture: food, jobs and sustainable
cities. Publication Series for Habitat II, Vol. 1. New York: United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
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