Three-point approach to urban agriculture

Urban agriculture, by definition, means practising cultivation, processing and distributing food in urban set-ups. Today this terms also applies to aquaculture, beekeeping and horticulture.

A group of researchers from the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences said that this system has the potential to increase food supplies and provide environmental benefits, but they have now identified knowledge gaps in the benefits and risks of urban agriculture.

In a research paper published in the Nature Food journal they used existing international research results and applied it to their own work. Assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and co-author of the research paper, Chloe Wardropper, said they used the existing data to propose a new framework to scale up urban agriculture.

“More than two-thirds of the global population is expected to live in urban areas by 2050, and the resilience of these areas may be compromised by their heavy reliance on imported food.”

The researchers said that increasing urban agriculture could reinforce the sustainability and resilience of urban regions in the future.

“There are open questions about how best to scale up and what environmental, health, and equity concerns will need to be addressed,” said Wardroppe.

The researchers note that urban agriculture is not a solution to most city’s problems and urban-rural connections will remain important. – Valene Premduth FW

Read the original article at shorturl.at/sBRX0.