Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
more self-suicient in food production, cuting consumption of fossil fuels and other
inputs and reducing waste flows through reuse, recycling and composting (Marten,
2004; Roseland, 2005). Moreover, it is increasingly mentioned as a response to the
impacts of increasing costs of fossil fuels on global food distribution, or 'food miles'.
However, these debates largely take place in the global North, where 'locavores' and
'greener' consumer preferences for environmental and socially conscious products
are part of a wider social movement seeking alternatives to globalized production
of consumables, especially food. Through grass-roots movements and the develop-
ment of community-supported agriculture concepts (Adam, 2006), the production,
marketing and distribution of local food, including production from urban farms and
community gardens, have played a role in formalizing urban agriculture in urban
planning and sustainable agriculture policy in the western world (Hopkins, 2000). In
developing countries, discussed in the next section, the status and stature of urban
agriculture could not be more different.
Urban agriculture in developing countries
In developing countries, the atitudes of former colonial governments towards UPA
continue in recent times: UPA activities are often viewed as 'unsightly', they may
be officially banned (Tinker, 1994, p5) and 'undervalued and resisted by generations
of public oicials' (Binns and Lynh, 1998, p778). However, some national and local
governments are promoting UPA as a response to the hallenges inherent to urban-
ization and economic liberalization, calling for self-reliance in food provision (Nel
et al.
, 2009). Urban population influxes have largely stemmed from rural small-scale
farming households feeling the impacts of globalization and structural adjustment
policies, whih efectively ended protectionist, domestic economic policies in favour
of open-market, export-oriented economy (see McMihael this volume). As a conse-
quence, small-scale rural producers, struggling to adapt to these hanges, often seek
other means of employment and a beter standard of living in cities. With limited
prospects for formal wage employment, home ownership or secure land tenure, low-
income and destitute urban dwellers often engage in urban agriculture for subsisten-
ce and income generation - or both (Thornton, 2009a).
Beyond its role as an informal response to unemployment and food insecurity,
UPA is being discussed in culturally and geographically diverse places. For example,
UPA is being considered as a formal strategy to stem the growth of peri-urban set-
tlements through the inclusion of green space in Mexico City, Mexico (Torres-Lima
