Urban Farming During the Pandemic and Its Effect on Everyday Life

Abstract

This study aims to see the effect of practicing urban farming in limited space in landed houses, especially during this pandemic. Pandemic forces us to stay at home at all times while continuing to do our daily activities of working and studying. This results in a shifting of time consumption we used to spend time commuting to work for other activities, including urban farming at home. Urban farming is the activity of growing and producing food in the city, as food is one of the basic needs of humans to survive. In addition to supporting food security within the area, it gives benefits also to the people’s health and well-being, as well as the surrounding environment. The methods used in this study are exercising and observing the availability of space and its effect on people and living space (environment) from the literature review point of view and case studies. This study eventually finds that performing urban farming as a choice of activity is proven to be beneficial in maintaining people’s health and wellbeing.

Urban Farming as a Resilient Strategy During COVID-19 Pandemic

“…"registered practice of cultivating, growing, and distributing food and derivative products by urban farmer or community through utilising designated yard called plot within city boundary". Andini et al (2021) defined urban farming as growing food in the city to maintain a sustainable food system within urban areas. In the spatial context, urban farming is an agricultural activity conducted in urban areas (Sokra et al, 2021).…”

“…Chandra and Diehl (2019), as well as Atmaja et al (2020), have divided urban farming according to its ownership, while Andini et al (2021) have differentiated urban farming according to media or materials used in the plantation. Andini et al (2021) mentioned the limited land space in urban areas as a problem for agricultural activities. Therefore, farmers or households interested in optimising their limited space must use various media or materials for plantation.…”

“…The example of optimising the available space for a plantation in a building, for example, on the rooftop as mentioned by Atmaja et al (2020) or verticulture as explained by Andini et al (2021), could be seen in Suparwoko and Taufani (2017) through their research in Sleman Yogyakarta. People utilised the space on the rooftop by building layers with specific functions such as drainage, protection mat, growing substrate, and vegetation layer (Suparwoko and Taufani, 2017).…”

“…However, the ability of urban farming to decrease stress and influence mental health could also become a solution for increasing the community's immune system and thus, preventing people from COVID-19. Andini et al (2021) showed that urban farming in Jakarta could increase the level of happiness and life satisfaction and increase productivity. Thus it was also predicted to improve the health of residents in urban areas.…”

Community Empowerment through Online Training of Drumstick Tree (Moringa oleifera) Cultivation and Its Utilization during the Covid-19 Pandemic for Urban Communities in Kediri, East Java, Indonesia

“…Through this community service, participants were expected to utilize their yards for gardening activities as a function of health improvement and reforestation. Gardening activities and the availability of green areas at home are also therapies to reduce stress levels during the Covid-19 pandemic (Zhang et al 2021;Afrianto et al 2021;Andini et al 2021;Giraud et al 2021;Lin et al 2021;Afrianto and Diannita 2022;Cerda et al 2022;Coyoca et al 2022;Egerer et al 2022;Sia et al 2022). Activities of this community development activities were distributing gardening and education packages through online media ranging from planting, maintaining, and processing the drumstick tree as a home industry business idea to raising residents' income.…”