How Does Urban Farming Benefit Participants? Two Case Studies of the Garden City Initiative in Taipei

Abstract

In discussions on urban food security and healthy aging, urban agriculture is described in the context of changing approaches to sustainable urban development under crises. Space planning-related urban agriculture practices, such as edible landscaping combing design and small-scale crop production, are the primary active strategies and environmental policy tools. This paper addresses urban food security and health aging by practicing campus agriculture and community gardens around National Taiwan University. In particular, this study adopts participatory action research, participatory observation, and semi-structured, in-depth interviews as the research method. We examined the challenges and benefits of implementing urban agriculture in Taipei. Further, we proposed that urban agricultural space building and planning based on a social support network of urban agriculture can effectively address food supply and healthy aging for an aging urban society to some extent.