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FEEDING THE CITIES, THE ROLE OF URBAN AGRICULTURE

As the world's cities grow, the role of urban farmers becomes increasingly important. The percentage of
urban families engaged in agriculture varies from 10 percent in some large cities in North America to as
many as 80 percent in some smaller Siberian and Asian cities. The informal activities of city farmers require
increasing financial and technical support.

The Move to the City

IN 1994, 45 percent of the world's population lived in cities. It is expected that this percentage will
increase to more than 50 percent by the year 2000 and to 65 percent by 2025. The fastest growth in
urbanization is in the large cities of developing countries. Latin America has the highest proportion of
urban dwellers, followed by Asia and Africa. But the rate of urban growth is highest in Africa, at 4.4 percent
a year, followed by 3.7 percent a year in Asia. While only 37 percent of the population of developing
countries lived in urban centres in 1995, this figure is projected to rise to 57 percent by the year 2025 - and
84 percent of the population of developed countries will be urbanized by the same date.

In 1990, 288 cities in developing countries had a population of more than 1 million people, housing some
814.5 million people. By the year 2000, there will be 391 such cities, housing 1146 million inhabitants. By
then, too, less than half of the world population will be suppliers of food. In the developing countries, rural
population numbers will peak between 2015 and 2020. By 2025 the rural population will be smaller than
the urban population in every region of the world. Furthermore, rural-urban migration, which accounts for
at least 50 percent of urban growth, has had negative effects on the rural population, including a talent
drain, an increase in the proportion of old people, and feminization.

Conditions in many cities in developing countries are appalling. At least 600 million urban people in
developing countries live in 'health-hand life-threatening conditions'. Supplies of food and water are
frequently inadequate, and sanitation is often lacking (see box below). The growth of cities will trigger
important transformation in the countryside as an increasing share of food production will have to be
directed to feeding towns. But urban agriculture can contribute in a significant fashion.

One of the major efforts of the next 25 years must therefore be to develop urban farming systems, which
can supply much of the food cities require without expensive transport costs. Such systems can also ease
urban waste disposal problems, since wastewater and organic refuse are potential inputs for urban
farmers.

>Much of the fruit and vegetables sold in urban markets

is grown within or near the city.

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Water for Thirsty Cities

Water is essential to good health and economic progress. Yet almost 300 million city residents in the
developing world are without safe water and about 600 million lack adequate sanitation facilities. Four
million deaths of infants and children occur each year around the world, as a result of this.

In many cases, the urban poor are not provided with adequate water because governments think they are
unable or unwilling to pay for services. Yet they are often already paying a price up to ten times higher to
private water vendors than their richer neighbors pay for water piped to their homes.

Investing in the infrastucture needed to provide adequate water and sanitation facilities can sharply reduce
health costs and loss of labour as a result of illness. It can also release women for productive activities by
reducing the burden of collecting water for cooking, laundry and other household uses

Percentage of population living in urban areas will increase in all areas by the year
2025
but the largest increases will be in developing countries.

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The Importance of Urban Agriculture

CITY FARMING has a long tradition in both Asia and Europe. In the past, it was practiced mainly
because it bought the product close to the consumer at a time when transport was slow and
communication poor. City farming was then for survival; for many of today's poor urban dwellers, it is still
a route to survival - but, in addition, it also provides freshness, dietary variety and aesthetic enjoyment.

Urban agriculture offers benefits that rural agriculture cannot provide. It takes place on rooftops, in
backyards, in community vegetable and fruit gardens, and on unused or public spaces. Typical products
include fruit, vegetables, fish, staples such as cassava, maize and beans, as well as berries, nuts, herbs
and spices. Small livestock and the occasional cow are kept.

City farmers are usually long-term urban residents, moderately poor and often women. Since most city
farming takes place in the infommal sector, it is poorly documented. However, it is estimated that urban
farming provides direct earnings for at least 100 million people.

Urban agriculture provides a number of major benefits:

• income for producers;

• employment for under- or unemployed residents;
• value of produced outputs;
• environmental improvements such as reduced run-off;
• avoided costs of wastewater treatment and solid waste disposal;
• import substitution; and
• reduction of urban squalor.

Most households in developing countries

would farm if they had access to land

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Policies to Promote City Farming

URBAN farmers face active discrimination by city authorities in many countries. Yet there are many
things that could be done to promote city farming.

• Lack of land is the main obstacle to city farming and most non-farmers in urban areas say they
would farm if they had access to land. City authorities could do much more to make spare or waste
land available to urban farmers.
• City authorities could make much more effort to ensure that solid wastes and wastewater are
provided free of charge to urban farmers. This would improve the efficiency of urban farming and
help solve major urban disposal problems.
• City authorities could assist urban farmers by providing improved seeds, helping establish urban
farming cooperatives and providing biological wastewater treatment processes.
• City farming can make a major contribution to the 'sustainable city' and should be promoted by
urban authorities for this reason.

City farming: key facts

• There are some 200 million urban farmers in the world, supplying food to 700 million people, about
12 percent of the world population
• Urban farming provides for 30 percent of vegetable consumption in Kathmandu, 50 percent in
Karachi and 85 percent in Shanghai.
• Some 50 percent of Asian urban households farm.
• Crops grown by the poor in cities must be low value (to discourage theft), have a quick rotation
(because of land uncertainty), and must be hardy and adaptable to uncontrolled conditions
(because of Lack of shelter and proper tools).
• Small livestock are an important part of city farming. For example, livestock are raised by 17
percent of urban households in Kenya.
• The average Latin American urban family spends 1 to 1.5 working days a week on its urban garden
and saves 10-30 percent on its food bile
• Flowers, trees and gardens associated with urban farming provide an aesthetic benefit in the
otherwise stark urban environment.
• Since many city authorities take no pride in making their cities appear rural. urban farmers face
severe political and regulatory obstacles including legal action and confiscation of products.
• Tanzania's National Urban Water Agency estimated that 35 percent of its fresh drinking water
supply was Lost through leakage and illegal tapping by urban farmers; it therefore imposed a
penalty fee on the agricultural uses of water in cities.
• Commodities such as fruit, vegetables, pork and poultry provide some 10-40 percent of the
nutritional needs of urban families in developing countries, thus making a major contribution to
urban food security.

'Officially sanctioned and promoted, urban agriculture could become an important component of
urban development and make more food available to the urban poor...

'Urban agriculture can also provide fresher and cheaper produce, more green space, the clearing
of garbage dumps and recycling of household waste.'

World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, Oxford, 1987.

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This fact sheet was prepared in collaboration with the United Nations Centre for Human
Settlements (Habitat)

For further information, please contact:

Food and Agriculture Organization
Vialle delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy.
Information Division, Tel: (39-6) 5225-3276/5225-4781/5225-4243
Horticultural Crops Group: Tel: (39 6) 5225-4658 Internet: http://www.fao.org
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements
PO Box 30030, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel.: (254-2) 621234
Facsimile: (254-2) 624266/7

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