Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and Rodriguez-Sanhez, 2008), and as a strategy for wastewater treatment in both
Hyderabad, Pakistan (Van Rooijen
et al.
, 2010) and Accra, Ghana (Cofie and Adam-
Bradford, 2006), where rapid urban population growth has led to innovative solu-
tions in waste management. In these cases, UPA is proving, in practice, to be an ad-
aptable system, tailored to suit local variables, needs and demands.
Under what conditions has UPA thrived?
Since the 1950s, the dominant perception of 'development' has been a process that
seeks to transform 'traditional' societies into 'modern' (Western) societies. This view
has arguably left its indelible mark on generations of government officials and urban
planners in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The dualistic
notion of cities as 'modern' centres of commerce and industry has effectively stig-
matized urban food production as a distinctively anti-modern or 'bakwards' activ-
ity. For most of the global South, therefore, UPA has been met with official disdain,
indiference and outright banning of the practice in the later decades of the twenti-
eth century. Despite this, UPA has thrived in the global South, where post-war mod-
ernization strategies have failed to 'develop' the 'underdeveloped', as expressed by
US President Harry Truman in his 1949 Inaugural Address. Many of the oft-cited ex-
amples of thriving UPA are located in countries experiencing economic crises while
undergoing structural adjustment. Cuba is a notable exception, where UPA has been
part of a broader government strategy for local food production since the collapse of
the socialist trading bloc in 1989 and the subsequent cessation of oil imports from the
former USSR. This collapse led to a food and energy crisis, known as Cuba's 'Special
Period in a time of peace' (Rosset and Benjamin, 1994). he lak of petroleum dimin-
ished the production and export earning capacity of Cuba's input-dependent mono-
cultures (largely sugar cane), a situation that compromised the food security of the
entire island nation and led to official support for UPA as part of a broader nation-
wide initiative of organic and sub-organic agriculture. Elsewhere in the south, many
developing post-independence states borrowed excessively from foreign lenders in
the 1970s, in part to inance public or social safety-net expenditures suh as food sub-
sidies. Structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), or austerity measures, created by
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and implemented by the World Bank (WB),
sought to teah iscal discipline to developing economies. SAPs require borrowing
countries to liberalize their markets and to redirect social safety-net expenditures to-
wards paying of foreign debt. A reduction of public expenditures often translated
