Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
can break new ground, but often a body of work needs to be large, multi-
regional and accepted by many before it has the power to change policy and
alter practice.
Health and the 'farm to fork' approach
Health-related problems are an important impediment to the uptake of UA
but are not impossible to manage. In their programme on agriculture and
cities, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI, 2007) advocates
a multi-barrier approach to risk. For instance, tracking produce from 'farm to
fork' and ensuring that at each stage there are simple barriers in place along
the production-consumption chain (e.g. hygiene, gloves, cleaning of foods and
markets, advertising) to alert and educate people (Amoah et al, 2007). Farmers
would have one set of strategies to reduce risk, market vendors another,
consumers still another and so on. Municipal action at the market level is
perhaps the most effective: markets are geographically discrete, they are
usually managed by the city, and it is the space where consumers and sellers
come together. This means outreach can have a great deal of impact.
Understanding the peri-urban reality
Recent work on peri-urban areas reveals that resource flows create a reciprocal
back and forth between cities and their surroundings. As work on UA grows, so
too do the different interpretations of what 'urban' actually means vis-a` -vis
what happens in the area surrounding the city, that is, the peri-urban area.
Recent work on common property, environment and development theory also
has raised the importance of the peri-urban interface in our understanding of
the city. The notion of a city's 'ecological footprint' suggests that the
environmental - and, of course, the economic - impact of a city extends far
beyond the reach of its administrative boundaries. Geographically, the peri-
urban region can extend as much as 100 km from the centre of a city. It is here
where food production for the urban market is concentrated, and this area
exhibits characteristics common to both rural and urban areas.
With an increasing amount of recognition of the 'peri-urban' as having
significant impact on the city, it is impossible for city planners to ignore it -
hence the rise of regional authorities and regional planning. Since these areas
are often outside of municipal control (because cities outgrow their original
administrative boundary), the urgency to engage national and provincial
authorities is acute. Indeed, the pressure of urban development on peri-urban
greenfield sites is a serious development challenge.
Policy change
Policy makers need to first consider their primary policy objective. Is it to
reduce poverty or to increase food availability? Is it to raise incomes of the
poor? Or is it to increase green space and options for reuse of wastes? Such
questions represent only the tip of the iceberg.
There are general lessons which we have come to understand regarding
policy development for UA. The central lesson is that policy must be incentive
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