Urban agriculture includes the cultivation, processing, and distribution of agricultural products in urban and suburban areas. Community gardens, rooftop farms, hydroponic, aeroponics, aquaponics facilities, and vertical production are all examples of urban agriculture.
Urban agriculture is the highest production per square meter. It is the most efficient and most effective because it can take an opportunity of all design elements that can be included in a city.
Urban agriculture comes in many shapes and sizes, from a rooftop farm to a community garden to an indoor window farm. When combined with traditional local agriculture, city farming provides a unique opportunity to build and strengthen a robust local food system.
Here’s a look at the many benefits they provide:
Nutrition: Urban agriculture offers increased access to healthy, locally grown, and culturally appropriate food sources. Having space to grow and share food is especially important in disinvested and underserved neighborhoods, where finding affordable fruits and vegetables can be challenging. Plus, growing and eating food locally reduces the distance food travels to our plates–which is good for our climate and our health, as food loses nutritional value in transport.
Health: While eating fresh food is beneficial, the act of growing that food also boosts physical and mental health. Research shows that working with plants—and putting our hands in the dirt—provides outdoor physical activity, induces relaxation, and reduces stress, anxiety, blood pressure, and muscle tension.
Economy: Urban agriculture can provide a flexible source of income for gardeners and cut family food costs. Also, urban gardening and farming projects can often provide job training and jumpstart food entrepreneurship.
Community: Urban farming adds and preserves green space in cities, providing places for neighbors to come together, strengthen bonds, and build community cohesion. Urban agriculture connects people with the earth and the source of their food and with each other. Also, urban farms offer critical opportunities for youth leadership, intergenerational collaboration, and cross-cultural learning.
Environment: Urban agriculture improves environmental health and climate resilience in the face of increasing storms and heat. Cultivated land absorbs rainfall, preventing stormwater from overloading sewer systems and polluting waterways. Also, by increasing vegetation and tree cover, farms and gardens attract pollinators like bees and keep city neighborhoods cooler, minimizing the health impacts of the heat island effect.
