Roberto Catarinicchia/Unsplash
Access to nature is provenly beneficial. Yet the UK’s urban green spaces are poorly funded and are vulnerable to local government budget cuts.
Scholars believe vertical farming, the practice of growing crops in stacked pots in vacant spaces, could be well suited to degrowth values.
Kate Neale
As the cost-of-living crisis bites into our household budgets, growing or foraging food can save you money.
Walkley Bank Allotments, Sheffield, UK.
Richard Bradley / Alamy Stock Photo
Maintaining a diversity of insects may be key for crop pollination in cities.
The Uphams Corner Food Forest in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood was built on a vacant lot.
Boston Food Forest Coalition
Food forests are urban oases that pack a lot into small spaces, including food production, local cooling and social connections.
Workers in one of the poly-tunnels of an urban farm in South Africa.
Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty Images
Urban farms can work in developing countries if farmers and architects are aware of conditions that favour food production in built spaces.
Some cities never sleep.
Noam Cohen/EyeEm via Getty Images
Artificial light is upending trees’ ability to use the natural day-night cycle as a signal of seasonal change.
Campaigners are calling for the right to grow fruit and veg in the UK’s unused public spaces.
RawPixel
A ‘right to grow’ law encouraging more locally-grown food could boost health, community pride and food supply resilience.
Joshua Resnick/Shutterstock
Nurturing enthusiasm for growing food closer to home could benefit people, wildlife and the global food system.
A cabbage farmer in Kumasi prepares his land.
kbprize/Wikimedia Commons
Policies should protect arable land from urban encroachment and make peri-urban households less vulnerable.
USEPA/Flickr.
From happier and healthier residents to more resilient buildings – green roofs offer significant benefits to cities.
City fringe agriculture gives farmers unique access to direct markets and provides those living in cities the opportunity to connect with local growers.
Foodprint Melbourne
To improve access to locally grown food and help prevent disruptions to supply chains caused by climate change, we need to support farming on the fringes of cities.
Intelligent Growth Solutions
Vertical farms grow more food but use much more energy, so let’s consider other kinds of urban agriculture.
Mandy Zammit/Grow Up
Hydroponics and aquaponics are already being used by the agriculture industry – is it time urban farmers got on board?
Building social networks is one of the greatest benefits of urban agriculture.
Author supplied
Urban farming increases access to healthy foods. And building social networks is one of the greatest benefits of urban agriculture in poor areas.
Mike Hardman
Urban farms might be trendy, but they won’t replace rural agriculture anytime soon.
Women make up the majority of an estimated 6000 urban farmers in Cape Town.
Green Renaissance
In Cape Town’s Cape Flats, female urban farmers are vital for food security and strengthening social capital.
‘Chook farms ruin lives!’. Australians consume a lot of cheap chicken, but not all of them appreciate an intensive chicken factory as a neighbour.
Marco Amati
As consumption has soared and prices have fallen, the realities of industrial chicken farming often clash with the values of people who live on the urban fringes where broiler farms are sited.
Cuba has a unique and highly productive agricultural system in the cities and on the fringes of suburbia.
Javier Ignacio Acuña Ditzel/Flickr
Farms in the cities and suburbs produce half of Cuba’s vegetables. But warming relations with the US could put this unique, productive system at risk.
Food to table, Chicago style.
crfsproject
Urban and regional planners need to play a bigger role in bringing healthy food to cities and towns. One research project aims to change that.