Urban Agriculture – serie

The book investigates the development of community gardens with self-built structures, which have existed as a shared public open space land use form in New York City’s low-come neighborhoods like the South Bronx since the 1970s. These gardens have continued to be part of the urban landscape until today, despite conflicting land use interests, changing residents groups and contradictory city planning. Both community gardens and self-built structures are created in a participatory design and self-built effort by urban residents and are an expression of the individual gardeners’ preferences, their cultural background and the decisions made by the managing residents’ group in regards to the needs of their neighborhood. Ultimately community gardens with self-built structures are an expression of the people’s will to commonly use this land for open and enclosed structures next to their homes in the city and need to be included in future urban planning.

This Open Access book is for scientists and experts who work on urban food policies. It provides a conceptual framework for understanding the urban food system sustainability and how it can be tackled by local governments.  Written by a collective of researchers, this book describes the existing conceptual frameworks for an analysis of urban food policies, at the crossroads of the concepts of food system and sustainable city. It provides a basis for identifying research questions related to urban local government initiatives in the North and South. It is the result of work carried out within Agropolis International within the framework of the Sustainable Urban Food Systems program and an action research carried out in support of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole for the construction of its agroecological and food policy.

This Open Access book is for scientists and experts who work on urban food policies. It provides a conceptual framework for understanding the urban food system sustainability and how it can be tackled by local governments.  Written by a collective of researchers, this book describes the existing conceptual frameworks for an analysis of urban food policies, at the crossroads of the concepts of food system and sustainable city. It provides a basis for identifying research questions related to urban local government initiatives in the North and South. It is the result of work carried out within Agropolis International within the framework of the Sustainable Urban Food Systems program and an action research carried out in support of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole for the construction of its agroecological and food policy.

This book explains how cultural heritage can be a tool for enhancing urban agriculture and improving landscape and life quality.  It cuts across the existing literature and fills the gaps between urban agriculture, considered as a food, social and environmental opportunity and cultural heritage, considered as resource.It focuses the role of the countryside for urban areas, in the history of the city and today. Its attention is on the quality for all areas, both outstanding, ordinary and degraded, as well as large, little or fragmented (European landscape convention 2000).  It considers agricultural landscape as a system of tangible and intangible heritage components and relationships, to be retained, enhanced and transmit, in a process of inevitable but appropriate dynamic conservation and management over time (ICOMOS-IFLA Principles 2017).This book can benefit the collaboration among local players – such as farmers, citizens, associations,public institutions, stakeholders – in conserving and enhancing agrarian heritage and reinforcing the identity of places and people. It can strengthen collective action and generate positive effects on good large and local -scale management.The first part has a methodological character in order to enlighten the integrated approach between cultural heritage and urban agriculture. The second part exemplifies cases where the heritage has been recognised but not yet translated into concrete action.  The third Part discloses ongoing process of co-construction, where policies have recognized the cultural, environmental and social meaning of urban agriculture as heritage.This book aims to reach scholars, local administrations, professionals, farmers and citizens. It involves many authors, many of whom are directly engaged with action-research in safeguarding and implementing the mutual interaction between urban agriculture activities and agrarian heritage.

This book explains how cultural heritage can be a tool for enhancing urban agriculture and improving landscape and life quality.  It cuts across the existing literature and fills the gaps between urban agriculture, considered as a food, social and environmental opportunity and cultural heritage, considered as resource.It focuses the role of the countryside for urban areas, in the history of the city and today. Its attention is on the quality for all areas, both outstanding, ordinary and degraded, as well as large, little or fragmented (European landscape convention 2000).  It considers agricultural landscape as a system of tangible and intangible heritage components and relationships, to be retained, enhanced and transmit, in a process of inevitable but appropriate dynamic conservation and management over time (ICOMOS-IFLA Principles 2017).This book can benefit the collaboration among local players – such as farmers, citizens, associations,public institutions, stakeholders – in conserving and enhancing agrarian heritage and reinforcing the identity of places and people. It can strengthen collective action and generate positive effects on good large and local -scale management.The first part has a methodological character in order to enlighten the integrated approach between cultural heritage and urban agriculture. The second part exemplifies cases where the heritage has been recognised but not yet translated into concrete action.  The third Part discloses ongoing process of co-construction, where policies have recognized the cultural, environmental and social meaning of urban agriculture as heritage.This book aims to reach scholars, local administrations, professionals, farmers and citizens. It involves many authors, many of whom are directly engaged with action-research in safeguarding and implementing the mutual interaction between urban agriculture activities and agrarian heritage.

This book will fill a void in the literature around research and program design and the impact of such experiences on learning outcomes within urban agricultural contexts.  In particular, this book will cover topics such as STEM integration, science learning, student engagement, learning gardens and curriculum design.

This book will fill a void in the literature around research and program design and the impact of such experiences on learning outcomes within urban agricultural contexts.  In particular, this book will cover topics such as STEM integration, science learning, student engagement, learning gardens and curriculum design.

This book fills a void in the literature around how urban agricultural education can be used to create opportunities to educate youth and citizens who live in urban areas about growing food. To date, very little has been written about program design and the impact of such experiences on learning outcomes. In fact, most of the journal articles and research to date has focused on access, contextual factors, sustainability, relevance of urban agricultural education, and the intersection of science of agriculture. This book will cover such topics as how urban youth learn science while engaged in urban agriculture programs, how such programs support youth in becoming interested about healthy eating and science more generally, and how to design urban agriculture programs in support of STEM education. The chapters in this book are written by educational researchers and each chapter has been reviewed by researchers and practitioners.

This book fills a void in the literature around how urban agricultural education can be used to create opportunities to educate youth and citizens who live in urban areas about growing food. To date, very little has been written about program design and the impact of such experiences on learning outcomes. In fact, most of the journal articles and research to date has focused on access, contextual factors, sustainability, relevance of urban agricultural education, and the intersection of science of agriculture. This book will cover such topics as how urban youth learn science while engaged in urban agriculture programs, how such programs support youth in becoming interested about healthy eating and science more generally, and how to design urban agriculture programs in support of STEM education. The chapters in this book are written by educational researchers and each chapter has been reviewed by researchers and practitioners.

This book presents the findings of a multidisciplinary study on the effects of urban agriculture (UA) on the social, economic and environmental aspects of the quality of life in Sofia - the capital of Bulgaria. The analyses are based on a sociological survey representative of 3 districts of Sofia (among 750 people), in-depth interviews, focus groups, expert statements, ecological monitoring of UA sites, and spatial mapping of natural resources for UA. It also focuses on UA effects on the social well-being of citizens and communities, the correlation between social capital and UA attitudes, the challenges for UA to integrate disadvantaged social groups, the factors for success of small UA businesses, as well as the role of policy and civil society in developing UA.  This work is also important for the analysis of the underlying links between all aspects of urban agriculture, many of which are valid beyond the local socio-economic context and environmental specifics of the city of Sofia.

This book presents the findings of a multidisciplinary study on the effects of urban agriculture (UA) on the social, economic and environmental aspects of the quality of life in Sofia - the capital of Bulgaria. The analyses are based on a sociological survey representative of 3 districts of Sofia (among 750 people), in-depth interviews, focus groups, expert statements, ecological monitoring of UA sites, and spatial mapping of natural resources for UA. It also focuses on UA effects on the social well-being of citizens and communities, the correlation between social capital and UA attitudes, the challenges for UA to integrate disadvantaged social groups, the factors for success of small UA businesses, as well as the role of policy and civil society in developing UA.  This work is also important for the analysis of the underlying links between all aspects of urban agriculture, many of which are valid beyond the local socio-economic context and environmental specifics of the city of Sofia.

This Monograph focuses on the new approaches that urban agriculture offers to grow food in cities. The author paints a dynamic picture of soil-less and indoor techniques that are currently emerging. A growing number of small scale community-led and entrepreneurial initiatives are using such techniques for diverse objectives: to increase resource efficiency; to strengthen food security; to educate and inform or to exploit new market opportunities. The described studies demonstrate how technologies that are typically used in high-tech food production can also be harnessed in small projects to generate social and economic benefits at a local level.  The author puts a focus on three aspects: to outline the context within which small scale soil-less urban agriculture is developing in Europe; to give an overview of the state-of-the-art of projects focusing on this area through case study analysis and to elaborate on emerging questions. Such questions include: is the use of soil-less urban agriculture changing the relationship with, and perception of, what is natural and sustainable for urban farmers and small enterprises working in this sector? What is the perceived potential of these soil-less and indoor forms of urban agriculture to meet environmental, social and economic goals? By answering these and other questions, the volume is a valuable resource for researchers in agriculture and sustainability, as well as urban farmers.

This Monograph focuses on the new approaches that urban agriculture offers to grow food in cities. The author paints a dynamic picture of soil-less and indoor techniques that are currently emerging. A growing number of small scale community-led and entrepreneurial initiatives are using such techniques for diverse objectives: to increase resource efficiency; to strengthen food security; to educate and inform or to exploit new market opportunities. The described studies demonstrate how technologies that are typically used in high-tech food production can also be harnessed in small projects to generate social and economic benefits at a local level.  The author puts a focus on three aspects: to outline the context within which small scale soil-less urban agriculture is developing in Europe; to give an overview of the state-of-the-art of projects focusing on this area through case study analysis and to elaborate on emerging questions. Such questions include: is the use of soil-less urban agriculture changing the relationship with, and perception of, what is natural and sustainable for urban farmers and small enterprises working in this sector? What is the perceived potential of these soil-less and indoor forms of urban agriculture to meet environmental, social and economic goals? By answering these and other questions, the volume is a valuable resource for researchers in agriculture and sustainability, as well as urban farmers.

Undertaking a journey into the “hybrid governance” of urban food movements, this book offers an original and nuanced analysis of the urban milieu as epicentre of food activism and food governance. Through examples of food movements in the city-regions of Toronto and Brussels, the author highlights the critical governance tensions urban food initiatives experience as they develop in diverse ways and seek to change food systems and their related socio-political conditions. The author investigates urban food movements as they negotiate access to land in urban areas, build resilient food network organisations, and develop supportive policies and empowering institutions for urban food governance. Through the analysis of these tensions, the book effectively puts real-life challenges of urban food movements in the spotlight—challenges that are increasingly visible and pertinent in today’s converging climate, socio-political, and health crises. The author offers suggestions to improve alternative food practices and, ultimately, to design promising pathways to instigate food system change.

Undertaking a journey into the “hybrid governance” of urban food movements, this book offers an original and nuanced analysis of the urban milieu as epicentre of food activism and food governance. Through examples of food movements in the city-regions of Toronto and Brussels, the author highlights the critical governance tensions urban food initiatives experience as they develop in diverse ways and seek to change food systems and their related socio-political conditions. The author investigates urban food movements as they negotiate access to land in urban areas, build resilient food network organisations, and develop supportive policies and empowering institutions for urban food governance. Through the analysis of these tensions, the book effectively puts real-life challenges of urban food movements in the spotlight—challenges that are increasingly visible and pertinent in today’s converging climate, socio-political, and health crises. The author offers suggestions to improve alternative food practices and, ultimately, to design promising pathways to instigate food system change.

This open access book, building on the legacy of food systems scholar and advocate, Jerome Kaufman, examines the potential and pitfalls of planning for urban agriculture (UA) in the United States, especially in how questions of ethics and equity are addressed. The book is organized into six sections. Written by a team of scholars and practitioners, the book covers a comprehensive array of topics ranging from theory to practice of planning for equitable urban agriculture. Section 1 makes the case for re-imagining agriculture as central to urban landscapes, and unpacks why, how, and when planning should support UA, and more broadly food systems. Section 2, written by early career and seasoned scholars, provides a theoretical foundation for the book. Section 3, written by teams of scholars and community partners, examines how civic agriculture is unfolding across urban landscapes, led largely by community organizations. Section 4, written by planning practitionersand scholars, documents local government planning tied to urban agriculture, focusing especially on how they address questions of equity. Section 5 explores UA as a locus of pedagogy of equity. Section 6 places the UA movement in the US within a global context, and concludes with ideas and challenges for the future. The book concludes with a call for planning as public nurturance – an approach that can be illustrated through urban agriculture. Planning as public nurturance is a value-explicit process that centers an ethics of care, especially protecting the interests of publics that are marginalized. It builds the capacity of marginalized groups to authentically co-design and participate in planning/policy processes. Such a planning approach requires that progress toward equitable outcomes is consistently evaluated through accountability measures. And, finally, such an approach requires attention to structural and institutional inequities. Addressing these four elements is more likelyto create a condition under which urban agriculture may be used as a lever in the planning and development of more just and equitable cities. This is an open access book.This is an open access book.

This open access book, building on the legacy of food systems scholar and advocate, Jerome Kaufman, examines the potential and pitfalls of planning for urban agriculture (UA) in the United States, especially in how questions of ethics and equity are addressed. The book is organized into six sections. Written by a team of scholars and practitioners, the book covers a comprehensive array of topics ranging from theory to practice of planning for equitable urban agriculture. Section 1 makes the case for re-imagining agriculture as central to urban landscapes, and unpacks why, how, and when planning should support UA, and more broadly food systems. Section 2, written by early career and seasoned scholars, provides a theoretical foundation for the book. Section 3, written by teams of scholars and community partners, examines how civic agriculture is unfolding across urban landscapes, led largely by community organizations. Section 4, written by planning practitionersand scholars, documents local government planning tied to urban agriculture, focusing especially on how they address questions of equity. Section 5 explores UA as a locus of pedagogy of equity. Section 6 places the UA movement in the US within a global context, and concludes with ideas and challenges for the future. The book concludes with a call for planning as public nurturance – an approach that can be illustrated through urban agriculture. Planning as public nurturance is a value-explicit process that centers an ethics of care, especially protecting the interests of publics that are marginalized. It builds the capacity of marginalized groups to authentically co-design and participate in planning/policy processes. Such a planning approach requires that progress toward equitable outcomes is consistently evaluated through accountability measures. And, finally, such an approach requires attention to structural and institutional inequities. Addressing these four elements is more likelyto create a condition under which urban agriculture may be used as a lever in the planning and development of more just and equitable cities. This is an open access book.This is an open access book.

This open access book is about a recent movement toward the “partnership between agriculture and social welfare” in Japan, which has been based on the idea that the shorthanded agricultural sector offers job opportunities to the people excluded from the existing labor market. The question “why agriculture for social welfare?” is worth exploring in an international context. The book examines the results of an action research project initially oriented toward agriculture-related job creation for the homeless elderly and the jobless youth, most of them urban residents. The earlier chapters analyze the relationship among humans as well as between humans and nonhuman life forms on farms, which are essential to understanding of farmwork and the problems in the mainstream labor market. The following chapters highlight the distinct characteristics of the movement based on lessons from this project, resulting in a critique of the welfare-to-work regime and conventional employment assistance. Reviewing literature on the overseas equivalent, care/social farming mainly from Europe, the final part attempts to provide an answer to the question above from a new angle, arguing that work done for the care of life must be delightful. The present study also contributes theoretical support to cognitive science, philosophy of mind, anthropology, politics, and social work science.

The book explores how unused and under-used urban spaces – from grass verges, roundabouts, green spaces – have been made more visually interesting and more productive, by informal (and usually illegal) groups known as “guerrilla gardeners”. The book focuses on groups in the English Midlands but the work is set in a broad international context and reveals how and why they undertake this illegal activity. Guerrilla gardening is usually viewed uncritically and promoted as a worthwhile activity: this study provides a more balanced evaluation and focuses on its contribution in terms of local food production.

The book results from research carried out by the authors since 1999 on urban gardening collectives in Russia, then from the extension of this research towards collective urban gardening in France, with some investigations in other European Union Member States and Brazil. This research was carried out within the framework of Kazan University (currently, the Institute of Administration and Territorial Development of the Federal University of Kazan) and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). It enabled the creation of an international research network entitled Sustainable Development of Cities: the Relationship between City-Dwellers and Nature. This research was developed with help from a three-year research contract (October 2009 – September 2012) with the GESSOL programme of the French Ministry of Ecology, on the theme of the use of urban and peri-urban soils for the sustainable development of cities. The final report of this research contract provides the basis for the book.

This volume offers a new perspective to debates on local food and urban sustainability presenting the long silenced voices of the small-scale farmers from the productive green fringe of Sydney’s sprawling urban jungle. Providing fresh food for the city and local employment, these culturally and linguistically diverse farmers contribute not only to Sydney’s globalizing demographic and cultural fabric, but also play a critical role in the city’s environmental sustainability. In the battle for urban space housing development threatens to turn these farmlands into sprawling suburbia. In thinking from and with the urban ‘fringe’, this book moves beyond the housing versus farming debate to present a vision for urban growth that is dynamic and alive to the needs of the 21st century city. In a unique bringing together of the twin forces shaping contemporary urbanism - environmental change and global population flows - the voices from the fringe demand to be heard in the debate on future urban food sustainability.

The book explores how unused and under-used urban spaces – from grass verges, roundabouts, green spaces – have been made more visually interesting and more productive, by informal (and usually illegal) groups known as “guerrilla gardeners”. The book focuses on groups in the English Midlands but the work is set in a broad international context and reveals how and why they undertake this illegal activity. Guerrilla gardening is usually viewed uncritically and promoted as a worthwhile activity: this study provides a more balanced evaluation and focuses on its contribution in terms of local food production.

The book results from research carried out by the authors since 1999 on urban gardening collectives in Russia, then from the extension of this research towards collective urban gardening in France, with some investigations in other European Union Member States and Brazil. This research was carried out within the framework of Kazan University (currently, the Institute of Administration and Territorial Development of the Federal University of Kazan) and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). It enabled the creation of an international research network entitled Sustainable Development of Cities: the Relationship between City-Dwellers and Nature. This research was developed with help from a three-year research contract (October 2009 – September 2012) with the GESSOL programme of the French Ministry of Ecology, on the theme of the use of urban and peri-urban soils for the sustainable development of cities. The final report of this research contract provides the basis for the book.

This book guides architects, landscape designers, urban planners, agronomists and society on the implementation of sustainable rooftop farming projects. The interdisciplinary team of authors involved stresses the different approaches and the multi-faceted forms that rooftop farming may assume in any context. While rooftop farming experiences are sprouting all over the world the need for scientific evidence on the most suitable growing solutions, policies and potential benefits emerges. This volume brings together existing experiences as well as suggestions for planning future sustainable cities.

This book gives an overview of frameworks, methods, and case studies useful for the analysis of the relations between agriculture and the city, in Europe and the Mediterranean. Its originality lies in the analysis of urban food systems sustainability from an actors’ perspective. All the chapters consider the key role of actors in the definition of innovations and pathways, which enhance sustainability, seen as an ongoing process. Part 1 presents systemic approaches of agricultural-urban interactions at the city-region scale in France, Egypt, Italy and Morocco. Part 2 deals with methods and tools for urban planning and local development, utilized to design and assess sustainable food systems. The Part 3 inventories the recent changes in urban agriculture and the new forms of governance which are emerging in European cities (Athens, Berlin, Lisbon, Montpellier, Paris and Zurich).  These results are useful for students, academics and activists involved in local policies and projects.

The book investigates the development of community gardens with self-built structures, which have existed as a shared public open space land use form in New York City’s low-come neighborhoods like the South Bronx since the 1970s. These gardens have continued to be part of the urban landscape until today, despite conflicting land use interests, changing residents groups and contradictory city planning. Both community gardens and self-built structures are created in a participatory design and self-built effort by urban residents and are an expression of the individual gardeners’ preferences, their cultural background and the decisions made by the managing residents’ group in regards to the needs of their neighborhood. Ultimately community gardens with self-built structures are an expression of the people’s will to commonly use this land for open and enclosed structures next to their homes in the city and need to be included in future urban planning.

This volume offers a new perspective to debates on local food and urban sustainability presenting the long silenced voices of the small-scale farmers from the productive green fringe of Sydney’s sprawling urban jungle. Providing fresh food for the city and local employment, these culturally and linguistically diverse farmers contribute not only to Sydney’s globalizing demographic and cultural fabric, but also play a critical role in the city’s environmental sustainability. In the battle for urban space housing development threatens to turn these farmlands into sprawling suburbia. In thinking from and with the urban ‘fringe’, this book moves beyond the housing versus farming debate to present a vision for urban growth that is dynamic and alive to the needs of the 21st century city. In a unique bringing together of the twin forces shaping contemporary urbanism - environmental change and global population flows - the voices from the fringe demand to be heard in the debate on future urban food sustainability.

This book guides architects, landscape designers, urban planners, agronomists and society on the implementation of sustainable rooftop farming projects. The interdisciplinary team of authors involved stresses the different approaches and the multi-faceted forms that rooftop farming may assume in any context. While rooftop farming experiences are sprouting all over the world the need for scientific evidence on the most suitable growing solutions, policies and potential benefits emerges. This volume brings together existing experiences as well as suggestions for planning future sustainable cities.