Urban Cultivation and Its Contributions to Sustainability: Nibbles of Food but Oodles of Social Capital

George Martin,Roland Clift,Ian Christie

doi:10.3390/su8050409

Abstract

The contemporary interest in urban cultivation in the global North as a component of sustainable food production warrants assessment of both its quantitative and qualitative roles. This exploratory study weighs the nutritional, ecological, and social sustainability contributions of urban agriculture by examining three cases—a community garden in the core of New York, a community farm on the edge of London, and an agricultural park on the periphery of San Francisco. Our field analysis of these sites, confirmed by generic estimates, shows very low food outputs relative to the populations of their catchment areas; the great share of urban food will continue to come from multiple foodsheds beyond urban peripheries, often far beyond. Cultivation is a more appropriate designation than agriculture for urban food growing because its sustainability benefits are more social than agronomic or ecological. A major potential benefit lies in enhancing the ecological knowledge of urbanites, including an appreciation of the role that organic food may play in promoting both sustainability and health. This study illustrates how benefits differ according to local conditions, including population density and demographics, operational scale, soil quality, and access to labor and consumers. Recognizing the real benefits, including the promotion of sustainable diets, could enable urban food growing to be developed as a component of regional foodsheds to improve the sustainability and resilience of food supply, and to further the process of public co-production of new forms of urban conviviality and wellbeing.

Highlights

There is a widespread resurgence in urban food growing
The food growing potentials of the Garden, the Farm, and the Park are shown in Table 1, estimated using average data for metric tons produced per hectare [37] rather than the actual outputs of the three sites
While structural limits will prevent urban food growing from becoming urban agriculture, there is a strong case to be made for it on the grounds of its contributions to social sustainability

Summary

Introduction

There is a widespread resurgence in urban food growing. One sign of its popularity is the endorsement of political leaders. Michelle Obama planted a garden in 2009 with the help of schoolchildren—the first White House plot since Eleanor Roosevelt’s World War II Victory Garden. The rise in interest is indicated by a change in the status of urban food growing: increasingly it is referred to as urban agriculture by academics [1] and others. As pointed out in the New York Times, it has become a bandwagon phenomenon: “In recent years, chefs, writers, academics, politicians, funders, activists and entrepreneurs have jumped on the hay wagon for urban agriculture” [2]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion