Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and health-related practices to ensure that food is safe for everyone to eat. UA
contributes by eliminating costly and ine
cient transportation from rural
areas, providing vegetables and nutritious foods grown locally where they are
consumed and preserving some employment opportunities for those involved
in raising such food.
The case studies illustrated how urban farmers are providing a service not
only to the urban economy in terms of food production, but also in terms of
mitigating some of the negative impacts of waste. For instance, UA manages
to reuse wastes, particularly those which are organic. It is notable that even
where waste reuse is common, an estimated 80 per cent of nutrients escape
into the waste stream without being used. The provision of such ecosystem
'services' has ramifications for the population and also reduces costs
associated with municipal waste management.
Proliferation of data and research on urban agriculture
The AGROPOLIS programme endeavoured to support the generation of data
and research activity on UA. Now, ten years on, we are seeing a number of
universities develop courses and research programmes on UA and integrate
them into their curriculum. Ryerson University in Toronto has launched a
distance-learning course on UA as part of its work on food security; the
School of Architecture at McGill University conducted studios on UA under
the guide of the successful 'Making the Edible Landscape' project; the
University of Georgia (USA) now hosts the Georgia Center for Urban
Agriculture in the Faculty of Agriculture; and Xavier University College of
Agriculture in the Philippines is only one of many universities now teaching
and conducting research on UA.
What is perhaps the most striking note regarding the rise of UA is how
quickly interest has grown in development literature over the past 25 years.
Figure 13.1 illustrates this rapid rise. The data show the number of peer-
review articles specifically on UA over four six-year periods since 1985.
Between 1985 and 1990, six articles were found in several major databases of
abstracts. That number rises to a remarkable 110 peer-review articles between
2003 and 2008. This does not take into account articles that may be on related
subjects nor the grey literature on UA.
In fact, more information than ever before is now available regarding this
topic. As illustrated in the introduction, advances in institutions such as the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UN-HABITAT and in universities
have helped the proliferation of work in the area. This is because it is a topic
that resonates. High-profile action such as the celebrated case of Rosario in
Argentina, Kampala in Africa and the inclusion of UA in Brazil's FomeZero
(Zero Hunger) programme have raised its profile. But the biggest success is
that urban farmers, once marginalized in their cities, are finding their voice
and forming groups to protect their rights. These farmers are not alone in
their fight for recognition. However, notwithstanding such impressive gains,
many more questions remain.
