Organic Urban Agriculture

Abstract

Urban agriculture (UA) has a long tradition in many countries worldwide, is actively engaging about 800 million people, and is now increasingly considered by urban planning and land-use personnel. Urban cropland, in particular, covers more than 67 Mha or more than 5% of the total global cropland area. Urban agriculture practices have many benefits and, in particular, may contribute to food security of urban dwellers by providing vegetables and fruits. However, growing food in urban ecosystems and, especially, on degraded urban soils is challenging, and research on UA in the past has focused on the social sciences. Although the number of studies on urban soils has increased strongly during the last two decades, much work needs to be done as many urban areas have been neglected in previous studies. The needs and benefits of UA and organic agriculture such as building up natural resources through biological mechanism and recycling of wastes, keeping the nutrients cycle within the system, strengthening communities, and improving human capacity are interconnected. Thus, more research is needed on how to maintain or enhance urban soil fertility by soil and land-use management practices. This knowledge must be disseminated among urban gardeners and farmers for improving UA and organic UA systems. Transdisciplinary approaches involving practitioners, urban dwellers, planners, policy makers, and, especially, soil scientists are needed to enhance UA production.

Assessing the Direct Resource Requirements of Urban Horticulture in the United Kingdom: A Citizen Science Approach

“…Use of shop-bought compost was relatively low, and 67% of participants recorded that they used only, or mostly, peat-free compost, removing the greenhouse gas and habitat destruction costs associated with peat, which are orders of magnitude higher than for peat free alternatives [44]. Further to this, 83% of participants grew wholly or mostly organically (as self-reported), a proven method for the maintenance of soil health [45].…”

A Cropping System for Resource-Constrained Urban Agriculture: Lessons from Cape Town

“…The findings support the assertion that traditional farming methods are not necessarily transferrable in a changing context [3], but this does not imply that the findings support the broad scale industrialization of smallholder farming either [16]. One of the key shortcomings of the latter is the erosion of the sustainability of local livelihoods through creating dependency on external inputs [7,8].…”

“…Cropping systems of the scale practiced by the urban farmers in this study are unlikely to create great wealth, but profit maximization rarely appears to be the priority among urban farmers: urban farmers from around the world are driven by holistic goals centered on community cohesion, healthy lifestyles and ecological stewardship [3,9,14,17]. Nevertheless, a minority of urban farmers in this study who were part of the formal market-garden network were able to generate their sole income from urban agriculture.…”

“…It is, however, useful to adapt urban agriculture to the local context. In so doing, it may be possible to optimize the benefits of this practice to local people and local ecologies [3].…”

“…Farming in an urban environment is challenging in any city, as space is expensive, relative to rural areas, and lower-priced areas are generally on poor quality soil [3]. When urban agriculture is promoted for community development, one of the key challenges is to provide the necessary resources without creating dependency [7,8].…”