Urban agriculture

Urban farming in Chicago, USA

Urban agriculture (engl. Urban agriculture or urban farming ) is a generic term for a number of ways of the primary food production in urban ( urban ) metropolitan areas and their immediate vicinity for their own needs of the region. In addition to urban forms of horticulture, it also includes animal husbandry in urban areas. The term goes beyond the known forms of urban horticulture (house garden, allotment garden , grave land ) and includes z. B. also agriculture , animal husbandry ( poultry , domestic rabbits , urban beekeeping or aquaculture / aquaponics ), provided they are operated in the urban area and peri-urban zones . The forms of urban agriculture are not tied to any particular legal form (private, communal) or socio-economic intention ( self-sufficiency , market production , social exchange ).

term

The term has recently been coined by Frank Lohrberg ( RWTH Aachen University ) to describe the agricultural use in the so-called Zwischenstadt and in densely populated areas ( Frankfurt green belt , Ruhr area). However, the idea goes back to deliberations on urban food production in the 1920s by Leberecht Migge . Lohrberg's role models also refer to the garden city , an urban planning model by Ebenezer Howard (1898).

Urban farming is often used synonymously with urban gardening , but there is an essential difference in the size: while urban horticulture is practiced by subgroups of the general population for the purpose of self-sufficiency, urban agriculture aims to provide products for the general population - also on a commercial basis . In addition, as mentioned at the beginning, urban agriculture explicitly includes, at least in theory, the breeding of ( small ) livestock in urban areas.

motivation

With a forecast of 9.5 billion earth inhabitants in 2050 and an existence minimum of 6,280 kJ (= 1,500 kcal ) per day, the conventional agricultural area would have to grow by an additional 850 million hectares . This area is not available. Alternative areas and spaces must be considered for the purpose of food security .

Functions

Urban agriculture has seen renewed interest in recent years due to the following aspects:

Local food production and consumption is one of the ways to reduce transport routes (and thus carbon dioxide emissions ).
Large-scale urban plant cultivation can help to make transport- and energy-intensive material cycles more local and more economical, e.g. B. through the direct use of (pre- treated ) wastewater for irrigation or fertilization purposes .

The decentralization of food production, and thus its extensification , increases food safety - although the risk of pollution is, of course, also potentially higher with urban products than with products grown on healthy topsoil in the country.

The increasing interest in local food production goes hand in hand with social movements that are grouped around the knowledge, upgrading or preservation of local specialties (e.g. slow food ).

There is a growing need for food that is produced in an environmentally friendly and socially fair manner, which is often attempted to be achieved through self-production or local purchase.

The aim can be a (partial) self-sufficiency of the built-up areas, as has been practiced on a small scale for centuries in monastery gardens or self-catering gardens .

In addition to the (partial) supply of locally grown products, gardening in the city also has other effects: improving the urban microclimate , contributing to biodiversity , sustainable urban development and education and awareness-raising for sustainable lifestyles. Community gardening promotes encounters and commitment to the district. Urban farming is a modern aspect the old idea which is subsistence economy .

to form

Hardly any cityscape can do without plants, but so far these have been used for non-productive purposes in most cases. While plant diversity is presented in individual examples for educational purposes in the widespread botanical gardens , city parks are primarily used for local recreation . Although these two forms are not used for food production, they already support - as a side effect - the urban quality of life through their oxygen production, the simultaneous reduction of the CO ₂ share through photosynthesis , the humidification of the air through evaporation, the filtering of dust, the noise protection effect through sound insulation , the favorable influence on the microclimate etc. All these advantageous functions are of course also performed by useful plants.

Traditional pre-forms of urban farming can already be found with the popular allotment gardens (allotment gardens). Not limited to cities, although there more popular than in individualized rural areas is the idea of the community garden ( Community Garden ) for common management. Intercultural gardens are a special form of community garden in terms of integration and inclusion .

From a technical point of view, the greatest challenge for cultivating useful plants in cities is of course the lack of space and the lack of sunlight between the rows of houses.This problem was sporadically addressed in the past by planting balconies ( balcony plants ) or using roof areas as a contact area for roof gardens .

Urban agriculture in Lagos (Nigeria)

In addition to these forms of natural production in the city, genuine (pre) forms of urban agriculture have developed in recent years, in which non-private areas are also included in the planning:

Guerrilla gardening: "Wild" and uncoordinated rededication of public areas for individual cultivation
Urban Horticulture ( urban gardening ): the "official" and positively sanctioned variant of guerrilla gardening
Vertical farming: Cultivation in and on urban buildings, which can practically be viewed as an extension of conventional greenhouses ("Plantscrapers")
Solidarity agriculture: More recently, cooperative forms of agriculture have developed, the farms of which are often located in close proximity to their urban customers.

Individual evidence

↑ Philipp Stierand: Urban Agriculture: What is it? . 2010. Retrieved June 18, 2012.

↑ Katharina Finke: Swarming bees . In: Friday , July 21, 2011, p. 27.

↑ Frank Lohrberg: Urban agriculture in urban and open space planning = history of ideas, categorization of concepts and information for future planning Stuttgart, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Institute for Landscape Planning and Ecology, 2001, DNB 962773948 (Dissertation University of Stuttgart, 2001, 203 pages online 2 PDF files, free of charge, 203 pages, 8.94 MB).

↑ Frank Lohrberg: Urban agriculture in urban and open space planning: history of ideas, categorization of concepts and tips for future planning - dissertation 2001.

↑ Urban agriculture in urban and open space planning Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Interactions. Yearbook of teaching and research at the University of Stuttgart . August. Retrieved April 8, 2015. @1@ 2

^ Migge, Leberecht: Green policy of the city of Frankfurt am Main . In: Urban planning . No. 2, 1929, pp. 37-46.

↑ Howard, Ebenezer: Tomorrow's Garden Cities: The Book and Its History . In: Bauwelt foundations . 1968, 21, 1898.

↑ What is urban farming

↑ http://www.spektrum.de/alias/erde-3-0/das-gewaechshaus-im-wolkenkratzer/1023392

↑ Brian Halweil & Thomas Prugh - Home grown: market the case for local food in a global, 2002

↑ Michael Nairn & Domenic Vitello - Lush Lots. Everyday Urban Agriculture, 2010 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2
↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2255494/The-plant-skyscrapers-Giant-greenhouses-city-centres-herald-new-age-farming.html

literature

Philipp Stierand (2008): City and Food. The importance of the urban food system for urban development . Dissertation, accessed on June 18, 2012 (PDF 4.0 MB)
Frank Lohrberg: Urban agriculture in urban and open space planning: history of ideas, categorization of concepts and tips for future planning. Dissertation, 208 pages, Books on Demand GmbH 2002, ISBN 978-3831131389 . Electronic version .
Frank Lohrberg : Agriculture Master Plan. In: Stadt + Grün , issue 09/2011, pp. 43–48.
Christa Müller (Ed.): Urban Gardening. About the return of the gardens to the city . Oekom-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86581-244-5 .
Axel Timpe and Karsten Ley: Istanbul: the cultural heritage of self-sufficiency. Urban agriculture on the Theodosian Land Walls. In: Stadt + Grün , issue 11/2014, pp. 11–15.

Web links

anstiftung & ertomis / Urban Agriculture ( Memento from July 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Project "Future Forum Urban Agriculture" of the North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture
Urban Agriculture in the Alternative Farming Systems Information Center (AFSIC) of the USDA (Engl.)

[1] Philipp Stierand: Urban Agriculture: What is it? . 2010. Retrieved June 18, 2012.

[2] Katharina Finke: Swarming bees . In: Friday , July 21, 2011, p. 27.

[3] Frank Lohrberg: Urban agriculture in urban and open space planning = history of ideas, categorization of concepts and information for future planning Stuttgart, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Institute for Landscape Planning and Ecology, 2001, DNB 962773948 (Dissertation University of Stuttgart, 2001, 203 pages online 2 PDF files, free of charge, 203 pages, 8.94 MB).

[4] Frank Lohrberg: Urban agriculture in urban and open space planning: history of ideas, categorization of concepts and tips for future planning - dissertation 2001.