Urban Farming: Opportunities and Challenges of Developing Greenhouse Business in Bangkok Metropolitan Region

Abstract

Growing food in a city is quite challenging but possible around the globe. Urban farming practices require specific knowledge depending on the location and the limitation of the land or space availability in a city. Under tropical climate conditions, even though the growing season is extensive, there are investment and business models on greenhouse urban farming within a city boundary. This paper highlights the greenhouse urban farm location and focuses on the commercial perspective of producing crops in Bangkok Metro Region (BMR). The paper focuses on reviewing and analysing greenhouse urban farm opportunities and challenges. There are two objectives of the study to understand landscape patterns and analyse the challenges and opportunities of greenhouse farming within BMR: 1) understand the landscape pattern of greenhouse farming with BMR and 2) analyse the challenges and opportunities of urban farming in BMR. The results are discussed with respect to specific topics including greenhouse urban farming location and operation, greenhouse design, and marketing analysis. There are 54 greenhouse urban farms located within the BMR boundary; 20 of these farms share their business opportunities and constraints of farming in the city. This finding shows that the location of the farms is no longer a constraint of urban farming, as all the greenhouse urban farmers can use social media to promote their farms and products. The most important advantage is that not only are the urban farm greenhouses involved with an extensive farming season, but the local city farms can also set the selling price of their produces higher than the standard price. This study could be used as a database for researchers, urban farmers, and locals who want to invest in the greenhouse urban farming business.