Saturday, October 31, 2009

Urban Agriculture

Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around a village, town or city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_agriculture#cite_ref-6

50% of the world’s population lives in cities.
Brook, R and J. Davila. 2000 The Peri-Urban Interface: A tale of two citites. Bethesda, Wales: Gwasg Ffrancon Printers.

800 million people are involved in urban agriculture world-wide and contribute to feeding urban residents.
UNDP 1996, FAO 1999

Low income urban dwellers spend between 40% and 60% of their income on food each year.
IDRC/ UN-HABITAT.”Guidelines for Municipal Policymaking on Urban Agriculture” Urban Agriculture: Land Management and Physical Planning (2003) 1.3

By 2015 about 26 cities in the world are expected to have a population of 10 million or more. To feed a city of this size – at least 6000 tonnes of food must be imported each day.
Drescher et al. 2000. “Urban Food Security: Urban agriculture, a response to crisis?” UA Magazine (2000) 1.1 >http://www.ruaf.org/index.php?q=system/files/files/Urban+food+security+-+UA+response+to+crisis.pdf

The development of urban agricultural systems has become a part of the urban fabric. As the population shifts to cities we must develop and study ways that we can accommodate agriculture in high density areas

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