Forms Of Urban Agriculture Research Articles

Identification of Factors for Active Use of Rooftop Greenhouses in Korea: Based on Analysis of Foreign Exemplary Cases

Background and objective: There are a growing international consensus regarding the importance of achieving carbon neutrality and ensuring food security, particularly because of the "global boiling." Rooftop greenhouses (RTGs), which reduce carbon emissions from buildings and facilitate urban agriculture, have attracted the attention of the international community as a new form of urban agriculture. Despite considerable interest in RTGs in Korea, their implementation faces limitations owing to a lack of relevant legal bases and policies.Methods: We aimed to investigate exemplary cases to identify the essential factors for greenhouse operations and present these factors and the necessary direction for the active use of RTGs in Korea. A literature review was conducted using RTG and integrated RTG (i-RTG)-related scientific papers, books, news articles, brochures, official websites, and local government guidelines from the United States (US) and Canada where RTGs are actively used.Results: We identified the factors required for the stable operation of RTGs in Korea: long-term support and cooperation from building owners, initial operating capital, differentiated distribution strategies, and a review of relevant laws and regulations. The latter has emerged as an important factor in identifying the legal and policy limitations associated with the operation and management of RTGs in advance. Furthermore, we discuss the need and direction for creating guidelines for RTGs to introduce and review related content. While RTGs are gaining global attention as a new form of urban agriculture, Korea lacks the relevant legal and policy bases.Conclusion: There is a persistent need for guidelines outlining each step in the active use of RTGs at the local government level. In addition, continued discussions among the relevant experts are essential. Establishing legal and policy bases for RTGs should promote their active use, ultimately contributing to achieving carbon neutrality and promoting urban agriculture.

Growing interiors – cultivating urban biophilic environments

To address growing urbanization, climate crisis, and food justice, we need to rethink patterns around the global food system. Traditional agricultural processes are labor- and resource-intensive and can be exploitive of local communities and ecosystems. In an increasingly decentralized food system, it is important to further innovate sustainable approaches to food production that support local ecosystems and resource conservation for positive climate and societal impact. This essay presents a case study of an indoor vertical farm in the historic urban core of Lincoln, Nebraska as a form of urban agriculture that creates increased opportunities for localized plant-based food production and access. As an adaptive reuse model for existing or underutilized buildings, it creates a spatial ecosystem of interior space, ecology, and economy, becoming a biodiverse environment for local food production that reconnects communities with their food while enhancing urban food resiliency.

Trend Analysis of Balcony Vegetable Gardens in Korea, Before and After COVID-19 Pandemic Using Big Data

Background and objective: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been staying at home more and "balcony vegetable gardens," a form of urban agriculture, have been mentioned more frequently. As a result of the Korea Housing Survey in 2020, the percentage of households living in apartments among general households in Korea was 51.1%, but there is insufficient research to understand public perception and trends of the balcony vegetable gardens. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze the trends of balcony vegetable gardens over the last 4 years including before and after the COVID-19 outbreak and to provide basic data for effective application to related policies and research.Methods: A total of 5,011 posts that mentioned balcony vegetable gardens were collected from Naver blogs and cafes from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2021. To tokenize nouns, Okt morphological analysis of KoNLPy was used, and keywords were derived using TfidfVectorizer of Scikit-learn library. Following that, LDA topic modeling was performed by setting the hyper parameters as α= 0.1, β = 0.01 and iterations = 1,000. The above analysis was conducted using Python 3.9.5.Results: Before the outbreak of COVID-19, balcony vegetable gardening began to receive attention and vitalized as a form of participation in urban agriculture, but after the outbreak, they are established as an activity for healing, emotional support, environmental campaign, and healthy hobby. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, people clearly seemed to seek a more sustainable lifestyle through balcony vegetable garden activities. This shows the values and expected outcomes the public has toward urban agriculture.Conclusion: Balcony gardening activities heal the public, and this healing effect could be a key to the revitalization and development of urban agriculture. These findings can help establish policies and set the directions for urban agriculture that reflect the values and expected outcomes the public has toward urban agricultural activities.

Mobilizing ‘impermaculture’: Temporary urban agriculture and the sustainability fix

This paper addresses the alliance between some urban agriculturalists, developers, and the local state in promoting a certain type of ‘green urbanism’ through what we call ‘impermaculture’. Impermaculture is a model of urban agriculture whereby some urban farmers approach their impermanence – the possibility of their operations being replaced by higher value developments – less as a threat to be avoided, as traditionally understood in the literature, and more as an intended modus operandi to which they are committed. We discuss how they use lightweight and portable growing containers, planter beds, greenhouses, and livestock pens to operate within and enhance contemporary regimes of development in global North cities. We identify a spatio-temporal impermanence that stands in contrast to classic understandings of sustainability fixes as either a form of greenwashing or as spatial fixes involving the sinking of capital into construction of a ‘greener’ built environment. In what follows, we develop a conceptual framework that will facilitate these contributions and provide a language for discussing cases of impermaculture in Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia. We discuss how urban agriculture is mobilized as part of the sustainability fix in the two cities. We first demonstrate how impermaculture emerges as a means of stabilizing the fix which is always prone to coming apart, or fracturing. We then draw on two examples – goat husbandry in Portland and temporary gardens in Vancouver – to demonstrate how urban agriculturalists are embracing and leveraging impermanence. This ‘impermaculture by design’ not only marks a new form of urban agriculture in the neoliberal city but shores up and temporally rescales the sustainability fix while providing urban agriculture initiatives stability.

Towards defining agricultural projects in towns: METH-EXPAU®, a multi-phase method

Over the past two decades, urban agriculture (UA) has boomed. A wide variety of forms have developed, from allotment gardens to UA rooftop greenhouses. Yet local authorities often struggle to define the specificities of the urban spaces and territorial dynamics involved. We propose a multi-phase method based on territorial analysis. This framework may be used to help landowners select the most appropriate forms of urban agriculture in the light of overarching territorial characteristics. We have applied our method, stemming from an action research approach, to three case studies: the town of Montrouge, a priority district in Lille, and a new district in Bordeaux. These reveal its potential and its shortcomings. We demonstrate how the structural, technical, and social characteristics of the spaces and agents concerned can rule out certain forms of UA which do not correspond to the territory’s (current) needs.

Community gardens as feminist spaces: A more‐than‐gendered approach to their transformative potential

AbstractIn recent years, research in urban agriculture (UA) initiatives has adopted a more critical and transdisciplinary approach, proposing that UA enables shifts in socio‐economic, community, environmental and urban paradigms. Following this critical agenda, this paper draws attention to the multi‐scalar transformative potential that participation in community gardens (as a form of UA) can provide to volunteers, informed by a feminist approach. Firstly, we review the literature on the diverse gendered benefits, and degrees of empowerment women have experienced from working in community gardens, both individually and collectively. Examples from the literature review are informed by concepts from feminist geographies that support the exploration of community gardens as sites of embodied, relational and multi‐scalar experience. Following that, we expand the discussion to review opportunities community gardens offer individuals to gain greater awareness of symbolic forms of oppression, and envision alternatives for social change, drawing on feminist geographies in ways that move ‘beyond gender’. These benefits are mostly informed by conscientisation, decolonial and feminist political ecology approaches. Finally, the paper suggests that community gardens can be conceptualised as feminist spaces, given their fluidity and capacity to enable critical perspectives in volunteers, which may result in alternative forms of political action. The paper concludes with suggestions for further critical research on UA spaces.

Introduction to the Special Issue “A Systemic Perspective on Urban Food Supply: Assessing Different Types of Urban Agriculture”

The production of food within cities through urban agriculture can be considered as a nature-based solution and is argued to be an important response to the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as to climate change and other urban challenges. However, current research on urban agriculture is still fragmented, calling for a systematic and integrative assessment of different forms of urban agriculture and the drivers and constraints for their effective realization. In this context, the Special Issue presents conceptual and empirical research articles from around the world on the impact and implementation potential of various types of urban agriculture. The studies of this Special Issue cover a broad range of impact and implementation dimensions, asssessment methods and geographical backgrounds that can support future studies to develop a systemic perspective on urban food production.

Introduction to urban agriculture

An increasing number of population in the cities has problems with food security, transportation and environmental protection. To misticate these problems, a new type of agriculture has been established: Urban Agriculture (UA). In this paper, we are introducing the concept of UA and provide basic information on the definition and forms of UA. The article aims to provide insight into the general concept of UA for sustainable city development. UA has a positive influence on social, environmental and economic life in the cities, which should encourage members of the government and private sector to utilize UA as an important part in city planning. However, there are reservations which should be taken into account, but by raising awareness we add to a better understanding of mechanisms in UA.

The Value in Community Gardens: A Return on Investment Analysis

Food production in cities is increasingly regarded as one of the building blocks for sustainable urban living, particularly as the agricultural industry faces mounting ecological and economic constraints, and populations continue to concentrate in urban centers. While substantial research exists on the qualitative outcomes of urban agriculture (UA), few studies present these outcomes in monetary terms that align with municipal decision makers economic priorities. In response to this gap, this paper reviews the literature on potential outcomes of one form of UA—community gardens—and identifies where gaps exist which prevent the translation of garden outputs into an economic quantity. The paper then describes a pilot return on investment assessment of a community garden in Ontario, Canada. Substantial data constraints were encountered, however the limited available data indicate that community gardens may represent an ROI-positive government investment. Further local-level research quantifying garden impacts would enable a more robust case for community gardens in cities.

Potential of Technosols Created with Urban By-Products for Rooftop Edible Production.

Urban agriculture is sprouting throughout the world nowadays. New forms of urban agriculture are observed such as rooftop farming. In the case of low-tech rooftop farming projects, based on recycled urban waste, one of the key issues is the type of substrate used, as it determines the functions and ecosystem services delivered by the green roof. Using a five year experimental trial, we quantified the food production potential of Technosols created only with urban wastes (green waste compost, crushed wood, spent mushroom), as well as the soil fertility and the potential contamination of food products. Regarding food production, our cropping system showed promising results across the five years, in relation with the high fertility of the Technosols. This fertility was maintained, as well as the nutrients stocks after five cropping years. Most of the edible crops had trace metals contents below existing norms for toxic trace metals with nevertheless a concern regarding certain some trace metals such as Zn and Cu. There was no trace metal accumulation in the Technosols over time except for Zn. This study confirmed that constructing Technosols only from urban wastes is a suitable and efficient solution to design rooftops for edible production.

The development process and effects from the management of community gardens in two post-socialist cites: Bratislava and Poznań

Community gardens are perceived as one of many forms of urban agriculture and gardening practices using high levels of social innovation and environmentally-friendly lifestyles. In contrast to the years of experience in the US and Western European countries, community gardens are rather new in Central and Eastern European countries. Our research strives to contribute to the lively discussion of the development process and effects from the management of community gardens in the urban environment, especially through a comparative analysis of community gardens in two post-socialist countries, Slovakia and Poland, with an emphasis on Bratislava and Poznań. In order to better understand the nuances of community gardening in these areas, we carried out extensive field research involving exploratory walks, participatory observation and semi-structured interviews with community garden representatives in both cities. The results of our analysis revealed both similarities and differences in the city-specific approaches in the ways community gardens are established, managed and developed under purportedly similar historical, geographical and socio-economic conditions of two post-socialist cities. We conclude that a strictly copy-paste approach does not exist. In other words, the proper way of management of community gardens and even the perception and interpretation of what is considered a community garden can vary from one place to another and is usually negotiated in the place-specific local context.

“Urban Farming Is Going High Tech”

Problem, research strategy, and findings: How do traditional forms of urban agriculture and the newer digital urban agriculture converge and diverge from one another in terms of land use and gentrification? I interrogate the subject of digital urban agriculture with data from 82 semistructured interviews and notes taken during public forms and tours of facilities. Respondents were located in Denver (CO; n = 30), New York (NY; n = 26), and San Francisco (CA; n = 26) and held positions ranging from community organizers, investors, local food powerbrokers, and planners to engineers involved in facilitating urban foodways based on vertical farming, automation, and related technologies. I find digital platforms—systems exhibiting characteristics including real-time surveillance, artificial intelligence, and automation—share similarities with traditional urban farming systems. Both platforms have the potential to disrupt dominant political economies and also have links to gentrification and other inequitable land use patterns. Potential divergences include differences in a) social, cultural, economic, human, and built capital barriers and outcomes; b) land use life course; and c) zoning.Takeaway for practice: Digital urban farming systems inhabit a regulatory gray area; respondents encountered agricultural, industrial, or commercial zoning permits. The “digital” aspects of these systems contributed to this ambiguity and are used by powerbrokers to obtain further zoning permission than is possible with traditional urban agriculture. Compared with more traditional urban farming systems, digital urban agriculture taps into different forms of human capital. Finally, my findings are inconclusive on the issue of land use life course. Some data indicate digital farms will remain in urban cores, whereas other evidence points to the eventual migration of these platforms to the metropolitan periphery.

Health Risks Assessment in Three Urban Farms of Paris Region for Different Scenarios of Urban Agricultural Users: A Case of Soil Trace Metals Contamination

Within the context of a worldwide emergence of various forms of urban agriculture, there is a growing awareness concerning the health risks associated to the presence of different pollutants influencing the urban products safety. Among the most common pollutants found in soils and vegetables grown in the city, Trace Metals (TM’s) are of major concern. This paper deals with risks assessment associated with the presence of TM’s in soil, via two main exposure path ways: soil and vegetables ingestions. Risks assessments were conducted for various types of real scenarios encountered in three forms of urban farms near Paris (Ile-de-France Region). The farms have soil TM’s levels in abnormally high concentrations (Pb (Lead), Cd (Cadmium), Hg (Mercury), Cu (Copper) and Zn (Zinc) contents higher than geochemical backgrounds and threshold values for sludge spreading, often used as reference values in France). The results of the Hazard Quotient (HQ)-based risk assessment approach (HQ defined as the ratio of estimated daily intake/tolerable daily intake) show that the most risky scenarios concern urban farmers (HQtot = 1.02, because of the on-site working on a daily basis all year round), children gardeners (HQtot = 1.29) and regular children consumers (HQtot = 1.6 in maximalist scenario, where the consumer would exclusively consume the vegetables of the farm). Next would be the adult gardener scenario (HQtot= 0.9), while the least risky are adult consumer scenarios (HQtot = 0.62) and the farm workers (HQtot = 0.45). For the highest risk scenarios (urban farmers and children), specific and drastic measures may be considered, such as reducing the site frequentation by sensitive populations (child and pregnant women) or proceeding to control analysis of TM’s levels in blood for the most exposed peoples. The choice of parameters used in HQ-based method must be appropriated to the specificities of urban agricultural activities. The uncertainties in the choice of some parameters such as soil ingestion, vegetable intake and exposure frequency could result in an over- or under-estimation of the risk.

Sustainable Urban Agriculture Land Use Practice for Thika Town

This paper looks at the residents of Ngoingwa Estate on their attitudes towards sustainable urban agriculture land use practice within their urban set up. The pursuit of food security, alternative food systems, employment, fresh food, the unpredictable food prices, enhanced communal ties among others are the basic benefits of urban agriculture. A mixed method (purposive and non-probability) approach was adopted and both qualitative and quantitative data was collected from primary and secondary data sources by the use of questionnaires, photography, and sketches. A total of 196 questionnaires were administered analyzed by the use of SPSS and Microsoft Excel programs. The results are presented in percentages and deductions done against them. It was found out that 60% of the residents are willing, and 39.3% are actually practicing some forms of urban agriculture. It was found out that the current urban development plan for Thika and the Kiambu County Spatial Plan have not handled matters of urban agriculture, there have not been change of users to agriculture (2016-2017), land subdivision continue to eat into into former agricultural parcels, there was no data on sustainable urban agriculture land use practices within Ngoingwa, Thika Water and Sewerage Company prohibits residents from utilizing their water mains for agricultural purposes as well as the county/neighbourhood regulations and policies that prohibit urban agriculture. The study recommends that an integrated land use framework that involves building designs, appropriate building materials, exploration of vertical and rooftop farms, revision of existing plans to include urban agriculture and hiring of extension officers to guide farmers on urban agriculture.

New approaches in securing more sustainable urban food futures: case from Cologne-Bonn region

Urban food systems undergo a huge transformation. Many cities worldwide are involved; they start to reconsider their current food supply system. This study will describe some developments in the Cologne-Bonn area, Germany, which have the potential to introduce new pathways for more sustainable food futures. Recent developments in urban food systems in the Cologne-Bonn region are very much “bottom-up”, driven by lively and committed actors (gardeners, farmers, civil society). In this paper potential synergies and conflicts in the emerging urban agriculture activities, focusing on producer-consumer relations and evolving co-productive approaches are discussed. We further try to understand motivations, aims and visions of the diverse participants of such models. By using qualitative methods of empirical social research such as narratives and semi-structured interviews primary data were collected in the case region. Until now there is no consensus in the literature about the optimal institutional set-ups for the permanent adoption of the various forms of urban agriculture. Preliminary governance analysis showed that especially institutionalized forms seem to be robust and sustainable. The further exploration of the cases will also contribute to understand the dynamics coming from the involvement of citizens in the agricultural production. Co-productive or participatory agriculture, which includes the consumer into the production process, has the potential to change the way of urban food supply. It is hypothesized that shared motivations and visions between producers and consumers in favor of a sustainable food system will help to stabilize alternative food systems whereas conflicts need to be anticipated to deepen the understanding of problems in the producer-consumer co-productive process. Our first results demonstrate that co-productive models of today are primarily based on idealism from both sides and also bear the potential of conflicts. It will be up to further research and innovation to address these issues and also check the new approaches on economic viability.

URBAN AGRICULTURE AS A TOOL FOR URBAN SUSTAINABILITY AND ALLOTMENT GARDEN

Mechanization and industrialization in agriculture, especially in the 1950s, attracted the rural population in urban areas. The increase in human population has consistently forced the physical capabilities world cities in terms of housing, recreation, working and transportation. Cities have long been facing intensifying structured areas in the mentioned process, where they at first grew vertically. The cities, which have reached their vertical limits, begun to expand and sprawl horizontally towards their peripheries. Urban areas, which have great impacts on the structural changes and transformations of rural areas and thus destructing natural resources and cultural values there, cause rural to be exposed to the housing activities and conflicting administrative authorities. The cities that develop by swallowing the rural areas and form the fringes cause problems in firstly the destruction of the agricultural areas which are important in their feeding and the feeding of the rapidly growing cities. Urban agriculture is very important for the future of cities and their sustainability. In the present study, views of forefront architects and urban planners are evaluated on urban agriculture, relationship between urban sustainability and urban sustainability, general overview of urban agriculture in some world cities and a form of urban agriculture “Allotment Garden” are emphasised on.

A socio-geographical approach to the diversity of urban agriculture in a West African city

There is a substantial body of literature addressing urban agriculture (UA) and its diversity. But the reasons for this diversity and the perseverance of UA in today’s cities are complex, and few studies have been conducted on a regional scale that focuses on the UA dynamics involved. We took this approach in a multi-scale and space-time analysis of UA in the African city of Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso). In order to identify determinants of the transformations in agriculture within the city and its urban fringe we analyzed interactions from two main perspectives: (i) between urban and agricultural dynamics in both the city and on a regional scale, and (ii) between land status and actor strategies at the intra-urban scale. The analysis is centered on three areas of urban fringe that have been subjected to various land use changes over time and illustrate the different ways that farmers have adapted to urbanization. On a regional scale, results show how agricultural and regional market dynamics foment UA development by providing commercial outlets and producing agricultural inputs. At the local (city) scale, results show how and why different forms of UA have emerged in specific locations that reflect the socio-economic profile of farmers (ranging from autochthonous urban farmers to relatively wealthy urban dwellers), their access to resources, the possibility of intensifying farming activities, and the formal or informal land negotiations and transactions between the various categories of actors. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications of this research and its relevance to public policy. Our analysis underlines the pertinence of comprehensive and qualitative approaches for analyzing the complexity of UA dynamics and enhancing the position of agriculture in land planning for geographically-specific urban contexts.

Resolving differing stakeholder perceptions of urban rooftop farming in Mediterranean cities: promoting food production as a driver for innovative forms of urban agriculture

Urban agriculture (UA) is spreading within the Global North, largely for food production, ranging from household individual gardens to community gardens that boost neighborhood regeneration. Additionally, UA is also being integrated into buildings, such as urban rooftop farming (URF). Some URF experiences succeed in North America both as private and community initiatives. To date, little attention has been paid to how stakeholders perceive UA and URF in the Mediterranean or to the role of food production in these initiatives. This study examines the promotion and inclusion of new forms of UA through the practice of URF and contributes to the nascent literature on the stakeholder and public perceptions of UA. It seeks to understand how those perceptions shape the development of new urban agriculture practices and projects. Barcelona (Spain) was used as a Mediterranean case study where UA and URF projects are growing in popularity. Through semi-structured interviews with 25 core stakeholders, we show that UA is largely perceived as a social activity rather than a food production initiative, because the planning of urban gardens in Barcelona was traditionally done to achieve leisure and other social goals. However, several stakeholders highlighted the potential to increase urban fertility through URF by occupying currently unused spaces. As a result, the positive valuation of URF depends on the conceptualization of UA as a social or food production activity. In turn, such conceptualization shapes barriers and opportunities for the development of URF. While most UA-related stakeholders (e.g., food co-ops, NGOs) preferred soil-based UA, newer stakeholders (e.g., architects) highlighted the economic, social and environmental opportunities of local and efficient food production through innovative URF.

Creating Space: Sack Gardening as a Livelihood Strategy in the Kibera Slums of Nairobi, Kenya

As many countries in sub-Saharan Africa undergo rapid urbanization, a growing number of people are joining the ranks of the urban poor. Urban agriculture is a livelihood strategy used by the poor to improve their well-being, but it has remained largely inaccessible to inhabitants of slums, who generally lack access to land to farm. However, in the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya, a relatively new form of urban agriculture has emerged, called sack gardening, in which farmers plant crops into the sides and tops of large sacks of soil. Our research asked how participation in sack gardening served to improve the livelihoods of farmers in the Kibera slums of Nairobi. We demonstrate that urban agriculture can be a viable and important livelihood strategy for households, even in densely populated slum environments. Low-space urban agricultural activities like sack gardening should receive greater consideration as part of urban development initiatives.

Http://www.agdevjournal.com/volume-5-issue-2/510-products-urban-collective-gardens.html

Among the various forms of urban agriculture that have emerged and been developed over the past 15 years in countries of the global North, collective gardens (CGs) are one of the most significant. In Montreal and Paris, their numbers have increased rapidly in the past 20 years. Previous research has shown that food production is an important motivation for urban dwellers to engage in gardening activities, but the food function of CGs, that we define as the quantitative and qualitative food supply they are likely to provide to gardeners, is poorly known. This paper investigates this food function in Paris and Montreal. We carried out comprehensive interviews with gardeners, quantified production, and did plot monitoring to provide insights on the quantities of fruits and vegetables produced in CGs, the destination of garden produce, the use of space in plots, and the types of crops grown in CGs and their yields. The results show a wide diversity of practices regarding CGs' food function that has to be considered in relation to the multifunctionality of these gardens. The paper concludes with a discussion on the results and the implications of this research for garden planning and management.