Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
change is leading to an increased migration to cities and livelihoods that are
put under stress. Moreover, human settlements are often located on the most
arable land. Population and cities, however, continue to grow, as does the
demand for food. Nor is technology yielding the same improvements in food
production e
ciency as it once did. In fact, evidence shows that global yields
of important crops such as maize, wheat and barley are decreasing with the
advent of climate change (Lobell and Field, 2007). The rate of change is
outpacing the capacity of technological inputs to compensate.
Changing patterns of consumption are also having a significant influence on
the entire agricultural system. As wealth increases, diets change. More meat is
being consumed in the rapidly growing economies, particularly in Brazil,
Russia, India and China (BRIC countries). Meanwhile, meat production is
heavily reliant on grain for feed. Naturally, any change in rural agricultural
patterns influences the form of UA in cities. Some patterns are having a serious
impact on the scope of food production. For example, rising oil prices and the
shift towards fuel crops for biofuel are upsetting food security by increasing the
prices of basic foods such as corn and wheat. Clearly, the issue of climate
change, transportation and the internationalization of food production and
distribution networks must play a role in future research.
Changing our methodological approach: Two lessons
In the topic Agropolis (Mougeot, 2005), Mougeot pleaded with researchers not
to ignore the large amount of grey literature that exists on UA. Grey literature
has provided a great deal of baseline information for dozens of city case studies
on UA. Much of this is captured on websites such as City Farmer (http://www.
cityfarmer.org), and Urban Agriculture Online (http://urbanagriculture.
wordpress.com) while still more is captured by the Resource Centres on
Urban Agriculture and Food Security's (RUAF; http://www.ruaf.org) Urban
Agriculture Magazine. These sources act as a repository which are informing
more sophisticated debates concerning the global and local importance of UA,
while a review of grey literature helps frame the debate on the advantages and
disadvantages of UA. This ample resource should be captured by researchers
in order to frame new projects. An important contribution to the field would
be a comprehensive effort to synthesize existing grey literature.
A second lesson taken from the studies presented in this topic is that
research on this UA requires a wide variety of methods and an
interdisciplinary approach to research. Social and natural sciences are now
frequently integrating ethnographic and anthropological analysis into their
research protocols. This change is significant because on the one hand an
interdisciplinary approach to research yields high value outputs, but on the
other hand it requires financial and human resources that are often
unavailable. Therefore, the second lesson is that researchers should make the
effort to triangulate and corroborate their findings with sources and opinions
from outside their field and/or their background. For instance, a natural
scientist whose work is reviewed by a sociologist will carry added weight and
vice-versa.
