Attention to urban agriculture has increased markedly during the last couple of decades. The number of activities to promote urban agriculture at international, national and local level has grown, but urban farmers in many cities in the world still struggle to get their main survival strategy recognised by city authorities. The demand of policy makers and local practitioners for inspiring examples of successful policies and actions in cities is therefore growing. Urban agriculture contributes to a wide variety of urban issues and is increasingly being accepted and used as a tool in sustainable city development. Currently the challenge is its integration into city planning and facilitation of its multiple benefits for urban inhabitants. This book seeks to present the current state of affairs regarding urban agriculture and sustainable urban development.

A growing number of cities are designing policies and programmes on urban agriculture, applying multi-stakeholder planning approaches to identify effective ways to integrate urban agriculture into urban sector policies and urban land use planning and to facilitate the development of safe and sustainable urban agriculture. These aim at fostering the multiple functions of urban agriculture. There is a need however to explore the relationship between multi-functionality and sustainability of urban agriculture.

This involves the analysis of both positive and negative environmental functions as well as their compound effect. Areas for further research and development include: land tenure, legislation and urban land use planning; gender; methodologies in working with stakeholders, such as action research with urban farmers or with planners to include agriculture in environmental planning, as a part of green belts, city parks and open spaces; development of new institutions or institutional arrangements such as urban and peri-urban markets and support to (commercial and subsistence) horticulture, aquaculture and livestock systems.

Facilitating such research and development requires the creation of adequate institutional frameworks that give urban agriculture an institutional home and ensure the active participation of direct and indirect stakeholders in the formulation and implementation of urban agriculture policies and action programmes.

When accepted and facilitated, urban agriculture will be sustainable, maintaining its dynamism and flexibility, adapting to changing urban conditions and demands, intensifying its productivity and diversifying its functions for the city, whilst reducing associated health and environmental risks and by doing so gaining more social and political acceptability. In certain parts of a city, the existing forms of urban agriculture may fade away or change its form and functions drastically, while new forms of urban agriculture may develop in other parts of that same city.

On the longer term, urban agriculture will be sustainable especially if its potential for multifunctional land use is recognised and fully developed. The sustainability of urban agriculture is strongly related to its contributions to the development of a sustainable city: an inclusive, food-secure, productive and environmentally-healthy city.

This book is a contribution to this discussion by the RUAF partners and those who have collaborated with RUAF or contributed with their experiences to the Urban Agriculture Magazine and related media. This network will continue its work in the next four years and regularly report on its experiences and new findings.

RUAF Foundation
ETC Urban Agriculture - P.O. Box 64
3830 AB Leusden
The Netherlands
Phone: +31-33-4326039
Fax: +31-33-4940791
ruaf@etcnl.nl
www.ruaf.org & www.etc-urbanagriculture.org
Renén van Veenhuizen (Editor Urban Agriculture Magazine and Knowledge management officer)

//2006

René van Veenhuizen

research

Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment > Urban economy

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