Urban Agriculture and Sustainable Cities

Urban agriculture is a new concept which is after the development of industrialization and urbanization. Due to the sharply increasing number of population in urban areas, the urban environment becomes worse and worse. Therefore, residents have realized that the quickly extending of urban areas will have negative impact on whole society. In this blog, it will focus on the advantages and challenges of urban agriculture. Also, the characters and definition of urban agriculture will be illustrated.

Because the world is increasingly dominated by cities, the international community is beginning to address the issue of urban sustainable (Tjeerd Deelstra and Herbert Girarder, 2004).

The programmer started in Rio with Agenda 21 and continued at the UN city summit in Istanbul. About 180 nations and states signed the plan about sustainable development principles and all of details. In this programmer, the definition of urban agriculture is ------the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around a village, town, or city. Urban agriculture can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agroforestry, urban beekeeping, and horticulture. These activities occur in peri-urban areas as well. It means that almost counties believe that cities use too much resource and generate too much waste. Thus, urban agriculture will play a vital role in the future sustainability of cities.

There are many advantages of urban agriculture. Firstly, for the part of society, it gives direct links to food production. People can buy the vegetables which grow in local area. Thus, the price will be lower than before. Moreover, it will create many employment opportunity and increase the income. Secondly, for the part of environment, the most important thing is that it can help to clean air and rain water. In addition, the crops which grow in urban areas can help to stop erosion and topsoil removal. Thirdly, for the economic, it creates a better local economy that does not rely on food from far away.

Besides of these advantages of urban agriculture, it still has many disadvantages and challenges. First of all, potential diseases may be spread by urban farming activity such as cholera, dysentery and zoonoses (Jac Smit, Joe Nasr, 2001). Secondly, if not practiced properly, urban agriculture can indeed be both unsanitary and polluting. For example, vegetable irrigation with untreated wastewater from Chilean peri-urban farms resulted in a few cases of cholera in 1992 because the vegetables were not cooked. This problem also happened in Peru. These cases tell us that urban agriculture needs to be managed well in many aspects.

In conclusion, although there are some disadvantages and challenges of urban agriculture, it is still a considerable design for many urban cities. If government can manage and design in a right way, the urban agriculture can benefit a lot for the whole society and local environment. 

Reference:

1. Quanjel EMCJ, Zeiler W, Ken Yeang. Designing with nature. Federation ofEuropean Heating and Air-Conditioning Associations (REHVA) Journal 2003; 13–7.

2. Anderson, J. (2001a). Ripples in the pond: Water recycling and integrated water management. Water 21, Aug 2001, pp 16–21.

3. Cole, C. and Deans, G. (1994). From effluent to power: A major recycling initiative by Hunter water and Pacific power. Proc RWCC 4th NSW Recycled Water Seminar, Newcastle, May 1994, 28–35.