Urban Agriculture and How It Can Contribute to Better Food Systems

Urban agriculture is a topic that may come up in conversations at times, especially if you live in the city. A little large than a home garden, it’s a great way for communities in urban areas to grow and distribute their own food as well as provide increased access to fresh, locally grown food. 

What is Urban Agriculture? 

Urban agriculture - also known as urban farming - is when people in cities repurpose a space to become an urban farm. By doing this, they can grow fresh produce or even raise animals such as goats and chicken for their meat and eggs. 

These urban farms can either be in someone’s own house, on rooftop gardens or even in greenhouses, to name a fair few. 

What are some of the benefits that come with urban agriculture? Well, it turns out there are a lot of benefits to adopting this way of farming! 

Economic benefits 

The economic benefits of urban agriculture can be stretch far but one of the ways they can help is by establishing new businesses to provide new employment opportunities for people in the city. 

Environmental benefits 

Urban agriculture can help to support biodiversity, improve air quality and reduce urban heat island impact. And this is just a few of them! 

Depending on the type of methods used (organic farming, etc.), urban agriculture requires less use of chemicals and harmful fertilizers such as herbicides and pesticides. Since people will be growing their own food and consuming it in the same geographical area, it also helps to reduce carbon footprint because there is reduced need for transportation and logistics measures to take place. 

Social and Cultural benefits 

Urban agriculture can be a great way to create opportunities for the local community to participate such as putting public properties that have been underused to good use. 

As the local community gets more involved, they have more say in the interests of their community. This creates a strong bond between each other, with people from different age groups and backgrounds. It also creates an opportunity to learn from each other where they can share knowledge about different types of vegetation, herbs and crops, and how to grow them efficiently. 

Education, Skill-Building and On-the-Job Training benefits 

Starting initiatives through urban agriculture can help in creating skill improvement and training opportunities, which can help develop important life skills for youths who participate. 

Together with social and cultural, it’s also a great way to enable access to knowledge of food systems, helping individuals to come up with new ways of practicing urban agriculture or improving existing food systems within the city they live in. 

Food accessibility benefits 

Creating food security is an important role of urban agriculture as it ensures fresh food availability and helps people living in the city to find alternatives to buying food, thus reducing costs of living. 

It also reduces dependency on processed foods as well as food damage. Also, because less herbicides and pesticides are used, nutrient content of foods are not compromised and may even increase! In turn, this reduces the community to exposure of toxic matter which contributes to a healthier society.