What is Urban Agriculture?

Editor's Notes

• #2: This course explores the social, ecological and plant science foundations and applications for urban agriculture. Students will gain an understanding of the origins and current innovations in urban farming. Topics include planning and zoning examples of farming in cities, regional food systems, food production technologies and scale, and soil-plant-pest management approaches. Case studies, with an emphasis on Southern California, incorporate outreach and community components of urban agriculture enterprises.  
• #3: Megacity can be a single metropolitan area or two or more metropolitan areas that converge. Tokyo is currently the largest with 37.9m, Mexico City and Beijing are 6th and 7th with 22.2m and 21.6m, respectively. New York City is 10th (20.3m). Los Angeles is 16th of 35 with 17.9 million.
• #4: The increasing population growth of recent years has brought the issue of sustainability to the forefront. Urban agriculture is one way to significantly impact not only people’s lives, but also environmental sustainability. This growing population has created a number of questions over how to deal with sustainability in terms of transportation demand, housing needs, recreational interests, food supply.
• #7: These types of gardens are popular and easily acces- sible to the broad community of home-scale food producers. require significant infrastructure for everything from growing medium support to water cycling, heat, and even artificial light. These systems tend to be less accessible because of both the costs associated with the infrastructure and the specialized growing techniques that are required. They also start to cross over from purely household production to production of crops for sale. This last slice of urban agriculture has fairly low barriers to entry, and has the potential to contribute a significant volume of food to urban communi- ties while earning significant income for urban farmers.
• #8: University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
• #13: The expression originates from the French word périurbanisation, which is even used by INSEE[1] (the French statistics agency) to describe spaces—between the city and the countryside—that are shaped by the urbanisation of former rural areas in the urban fringe, both in a qualitative (e.g. diffusion of urban lifestyle) and in a quantitative (e.g. new residential zones) sense. It is frequently seen as a result of post-modernity—(not post-modernism). In science, the term was used initially in France and Switzerland.
• #14: Include food justice, poverty and workforce capacity, ….
• #15: Similarly, in spite of its seeming simplicity, urban agriculture does not just happen. To foster the development and growth of urban agriculture, a city may have to consider implementing techniques that include zoning ordinances, comprehensive plans and, in some cases, state legislation. Physically, it increases green space, which reduces the urban heat island, stormwater runoff, and improves air quality. Because food is produced locally, urban agriculture also reduces energy consumption and pollution associated with transportation. An urban heat island (UHI) is a metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities.

• #18: Food Insecure: Uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food. Food insecure households include those with Low food security and Very low food security. Low food security: Obtained enough food to avoid substantially disrupting their eating patterns or reducing food intake by using a variety of coping strategies, such as eating less varied diets, participating in Federal food assistance programs, or getting enough emergency food from community food pantries. Very low food security: Normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.
• #19: The phrase 'nine meals from anarchy' sounds more like the title of a bad Hollywood movie than any genuine threat. But that was the expression coined by Lord Cameron of Dillington, a farmer who was the first head of the Countryside Agency  -  the quango set up by Tony Blair in the days when he pretended to care about the countryside  -  to describe just how perilous Britain's food supply actually is. A far-fetched warning for a First World nation like Britain? Hardly. Because that's exactly what happened in the U.S. in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. People looted in order to feed themselves and their families.
• #20: http://www.wired.com/2012/11/sandy-supply-chain-impact/all/ But for a company that’s succeeded in retail the way Walmart has, it’s hardly surprising that it would invest in systems to track flooded roads and power outages with as much zeal as any emergency management agency. For a company like Walmart, a normal day doesn’t look that much different than a disaster day, at least from a supply chain perspective.
• #23: "I don't grow food, I grow people," he says. "And food just happens to be a byproduct of growing people, where you're showing people how to be self-sufficient and self-sustaining and how to be creative.”
• #25: In sociology, social capital is the expected collective or economic benefits derived from the preferential treatment and cooperation between individuals and groups. Although different social sciences emphasize different aspects of social capital, they tend to share the core idea "that social networks have value". Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a university education (cultural capital or human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so do social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups.
• #27: This doesn’t mean that every urban agriculture project or urban farm offers all of these benefits! Every site is unique. Projects must be designed and implemented with their goals in mind. Economic Development while most forms of urban agriculture are not for profit, participants, and sometimes units of government, can benefit economically (Herbach 1998). Furthermore, community supported agriculture and involvement in farmers’ markets are two opportunities to share benefits between consumers and producers (Barrs [n.d.]). Farmers’ markets have a locational advantage over commercial producers since the distance of transport is shorter and there is less need for packaging (Nugent 1999). The gross returns to farmers’ market participants are generally 200 to 250 percent higher than the returns from wholesaler or distributor sales (Abel et al 1999). In addition, the markets provide an alternative for consumers who value “quality and variety” or who wish to support local agriculture (Lyson et al. 1995).
• #29: Hayden-Smith advocates for school, home and community gardens and food enterprises…and for public policies that support a healthy, affordable, sustainable, accessible and just food system. You can find her work under the moniker ”Victory Grower”. Hayden-Smith holds Masters degrees in Education and U.S. history, and a doctorate in U.S. history from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
• #30: In WWI, the Federal Bureau of Education rolled out a national school garden program and funded it with War Department monies. 
• #31: http://www.plantingseedsblog.com/2009/11/the-top-5-us-first-lady-gardeners/
• #32: http://www.kcet.org/socal/departures/richland-farms/
• #39: This study instead integrates global data on croplands and urban extents using spatial overlay analysis to estimate the global area of urban and peri-urban irrigated and rainfed croplands. their sum does not necessarily represent the total urban cropland area when the maximum extent of irrigated and rainfed croplands occurs in different months. Further analysis of croplands within 20 km of urban extents show that 60 and 35 percent of, respectively, all irrigated and rainfed croplands fall within this distance range.
• #41: Synergy of Traditional & Urban Agriculture Traditional agriculture will always play a major role in global food supply and economics. Since traditional farmland is much larger in area than most urban farms, more crops can potentially be yielded and more animals can be raised. Looking into the future though, with a constant growing population, new methods of growing are necessary in order to survive. With the decline in the area of farmland annually, urban agriculture will be this new method and can make up for the declining land for traditional agriculture. These two methods can work hand in hand to ensure that food supply stays at a sufficient amount as well as cleaning up the environment. ???? http://www.powerhousegrowers.com/traditional-urban-agriculture-need/