Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
4
The Social and Economic
Implications of Urban Agriculture
on Food Security in Harare,
Zimbabwe
Charity Mutonodzo
1
I
NTRODUCTION
For decades, poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition in Africa were viewed
as largely rural problems (Maxwell et al, 2000); however, the population of
many African countries, including Zimbabwe, is becoming more urban. The
urban population in Africa grew from 27 to 38 per cent between 1980 and
2000, and is expected to reach nearly 50 per cent by 2020 (WRI, 1999).
Unfortunately, the urbanization of the continent does not mean economic
opportunity and prosperity for the majority of Africans. On the contrary,
global poverty is becoming more African, more urban and more feminine.
Fifty per cent of the world's poor and 40 per cent of Africa's poor live in
urban areas (Rabinovitch, 1999).
Earlier research in Zaire has shown that 60-80 per cent of the total
household budget of the poor is spent on food (Tabatabai, 1993). This finding
makes it likely that urban poverty will be manifested at least in part as a
problem related to food security. As food security continues to worsen in urban
areas, households probably will turn to urban agriculture (UA) as a means of
coping. Nevertheless, research on this topic is still relatively new despite an
increasing but still limited recognition of UA (Mougeot, 2006). Part of the
reason may be that many local governments and municipal decision-makers
continue to view agriculture as essentially 'non-urban', which blinds them to
UA's contributions to food security and socio-economic improvements. Hence,
there is an urgent need to apply food-security monitoring approaches developed
in rural contexts (FEWSNET, 2001) to the urban environment.
