The Social Network of Urban Agriculture

Abstract

This paper explains how poor urban households in Port Harcourt City, Nigeria, engage with urban agricultural production practices in order to improve their conditions. It shows that this engagement is socially mediated by a primary desire for households' food security. An important feature of the assertions made about conventional approaches to economic development relating to Nigeria was the assumption that this would bring about more jobs and employment. They contrasted rural with urban areas and agriculture with industries but because they were not well planned for in terms of policies, they all failed in the early 1980s. Urban agriculture then act as a shock absorber to cushion the effect of these bad policies on urban households. One of such policies is the Land Use Act 1978 which forced urban households engaging with UA to abandon their urban land with little or no compensation. This has continued during and after the structural adjustments programmes till date and poverty reduction policies are yet to incorporate urban agriculture as an urban livelihood strategy. This paper reviewed the phases of development in Nigeria, made case for urban agriculture as part of urban production system and suggested that urban agriculture should be defined in context to its features and the particular city hosting it.