BUILT  ENVIRONMENT  HOME

URBAN AGRICULTURE

WHY URBAN AGRICULTURE?

What's wrong with our food?
The way this food is produced,distributed and consumed is unsustainable in every sense of the word it contributes to :
Unsustainable economies:

Environmental damage:
Ill health:
Powerlessness
[C.ELDOC.6009296]

Urban Agriculture Reaches New Heights Through Rooftop Gardening.

In Montreal, as in other Canadian cities, many citizens would like to rent a small plot of land or join other growers to plant and grow vegetable crops cooperatively and then share the harvest. Long waiting lists for community gardens, however, thwart these modest ambitions. In light of high demand and limited space for urban gardens, Alternatives is experimenting with a gardening system called "rooftop simplified hydroponics" - a system adapted from the group’s experiences in the developing world. [C.ELDOC.6008873]


Tale of Two Tomatoes
Buy local and live free!
The food industry is consolidating at an alarming rate. The top companies producing meats, grains, and other staples now enjoy virtual control over the markets for their products. It's gotten to the point where much of our nourishment depends on a handful of giants. And they're shipping foods an average of 1500 miles to reach your plate, a practice that strains anyone's notion of "fresh."
An alternative is on the rise, led by Local Lucy, the tomato next door.
When you buy her and other foods raised near to home, more of your money makes it back to the farmer, helping to keep families on the land. It’s quite a ripple effect from the purchase of a simple tomato. But Lucy's a special fruit -- the vanguard of a Buy Local revolution.READ MORE ABOUT LOCAL LUCY[C.ELDOC.6009282]


Suburban Organic Paradise
Fairview Gardens, Goleta, California
By Chris Lazarus
Twelve and a half acres of rich farmland are tended organically, producing 100 varieties of fruits and vegetables, as well as chickens and goats -- all in all, enough food to feed 500 families and employ 23 people full time.
Michael Ableman arrived at Fairview Gardens 20 years ago to graft fruit trees, soon became the manager and, through trial and error, transformed the small fruit farm shipping its produce to distant markets into the abundant organic supermarket for local consumption that it is today. [C.ELDOC.6009240]

Balancing the Positive and Negative Health Impacts                                                                              By Karen Lock European Centre on the Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK                      

Urban agriculture can have both negative and positive effects on the health and environmental conditions of the urban population.In some countries, health and other concerns have led authorities to refrain from the planning and development of agriculture within city limits.

The main health risks associated with urban and periurban agriculture:

• contamination of crops with pathogenic organisms (e.g. bacteria, protozoa, viruses or helminths), due to irrigation by water from polluted streams, or inadequately treated wastewater or organic solid wastes;
• human diseases transferred from disease vectors attracted by agricultural activity;
• contamination of crops and/or drinking water by residues of agrochemicals;
• contamination of crops by uptake of heavy metals from contaminated soils, air or water;
• transmission of diseases from domestic animals to people (zoonosis) during husbandry, processing or meat consumption;
• human diseases associated with unsanitary postharvest processing, marketing and preparation of locally produced food;
• occupational health risks for workers in the food-production and food-processing industries.                             READ FULL TEXT

Urban agriculture: What limits?
By Don Okpala 

A critical look, however, suggests that for all its immediate benefits as a coping strategy, urban agriculture does pose serious challenges to sustainable development and management of cities. The main concerns revolve around the environment, health and the economics of land-use management. The higher pollution rates in urban areas threaten contamination of horticultural products, and urban livestock production can help spread epidemics. To UN-HABITAT, efforts to achieve food security must be part of an overall drive to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development of society as a whole. In this context, it must be recognized that food security does not necessarily require that everyone produce their own meat, vegetables or fruit.[C.ELDOC.6009262]

Can Urban Rooftop Microfarms be profitable?                                                                                     By Geoff Wilson 

This question has been answered (on paper) by the Southside Chamber of Commerce in the city of Brisbane, in sub-tropical Australia. The chamber calculated that with a little more than A$200,000 (approx.111.450 USD), a "rooftop microfarm" based on waste management could yield around 20% return on invested capital, and employ three to four people. The Southside Chamber of Commerce Urban Agriculture Group is now considering how to fund a pilot project in Mt Gravatt Central in Brisbane, in the state of Queensland to prove the feasibility study findings.[C.ELDOC.6009253]

Solid Waste Reuse and Urban Agriculture-Dilemmas In Developing Countries:The Bad News & The Good News By Christine Furedy & Tasneem Chowdhury

This paper, introduces the basic issues of public health arising from solid waste reuse in urban agriculture. We are not writing as planners, so much as suggesting preliminary ways that development advisors and urban planners can understand these concerns and develop frameworks and criteria for reducing the public health risks of using of urban solid wastes in urban agriculture.

The scope of this discussion is confined to municipal solid wastes (household-commercial-institutional). It does not include separately managed special wastes or segregated human excreta and wastewater, e.g., septage and sewage sludges, and sludge cakes.[C.ELDOC.6009456]

From a philosophy of cooperation with nature and each other, of caring for the earth and people, permaculture presents an approach to designing environments which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems, to regenerate damaged land and preserve environments which are still intact.

                                                                                                        permaculture international journal

So how did the first permacultureshoot show itself above ground?

The first appearance ofthe permaculture concept anywhere in the world was in a magazine article , in tasmania, australia,entitled "Permaculture System for southern australian conditions- part one" by  Bill Mollison & David Holmgren.
The feedback from the article led to the publication of the book "Permaculture One".