Urban agriculture

It can involve a movement of organic growers, "foodies" and "locavores", who seek to form social networks founded on a shared ethos of nature and community holism.

(3500BC) In Persia's semi-desert towns, oases were fed through aqueducts carrying mountain water to support intensive food production, nurtured by wastes from the communities.

At the Incans' Machu Picchu, water was conserved and reused as part of the stepped architecture of the city, and vegetable beds were designed to gather sun in order to prolong the growing season.

[6] Elsewhere in the Americas, well-documented examples of pre-Columbian Amerindian urban agriculture include the Aztecs' lake-based chinampas which were crucial to population growth in Mexico Valley's cities;[7] Cahokia's maize-based economy in the Mississippi River near present-day St. Louis;[8] and the thriving mesa agricultural plots of the cliff-based Pueblo cultures such as Mesa Verde of today's Four Corners region, among others.

[11] In 1894, Mayor Hazen S. Pingree called on outlying citizens of a depression-struck Detroit to lend their properties to the city government ahead of the winter season.

[16] The National War Garden Committee under the American Forestry Association organized campaigns with patriotic messages such as "Sow the Seeds of Victory", with the aim of reducing domestic pressure on food production.

[17] Once more, the government supported and encouraged Victory Gardens as a means of national security: domestic pressure on major agricultural industries would be relieved to further augment the war economy.

[11] Still others seek to use urban agriculture as a means of combating community-scale food insecurity,[24] as part of wider goals of rewilding cities[25] and human diets,[26] among a multitude of other uses.

They are usually community-run gardens seeking to improve community relationships and offer an awareness of agriculture and farming to people who live in urbanized areas.

While certain challenges exist towards implementation and management, the program covers multiple types of urban agricultural sites governed by a variety of independent actors and institutions.

[56] The origins of aquaponics can be traced back to the ancient Aztecs in Mexico, who practiced a form of this method by cultivating crops on floating rafts in nutrient-rich waters.

This approach maximizes space utilization and facilitates year-round cultivation, making it an ideal choice for densely populated urban areas with limited land availability.

The concept of vertical farming dates back to the early 20th century, but its recent popularity has surged due to the challenges posed by urbanization and the growing demand for sustainable food production.

[58] In practice, vertical farms employ advanced techniques such as hydroponics or aeroponics, allowing plants to grow without soil by using nutrient-rich water or air instead.

Singapore stands at the forefront of the vertical farming movement, embracing this technology-driven agriculture to address its limited land availability and secure food sustainability.

As a densely populated city-state, Singapore's adoption of vertical farming showcases how innovative approaches to agriculture can effectively tackle the challenges of urban living while promoting sustainable food production.

In contrast to the dominant model of agriculture, agroecology emphasizes the importance of soil health by fostering connections between the diverse biotic and abiotic factors present.

[89] Studies have shown that participation from women have a higher production rate, therefore producing the adequate amount for household consumption while supplying more for market sale.

According to a study by Rich Pirog, associate director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, the average conventional produce item travels 1,500 miles (2,400 km),[93] using, if shipped by tractor-trailer, 1 US gallon (3.8 L; 0.83 imp gal) of fossil fuel per 100 pounds (45 kg).

In the process known as Phytoremediation, plants and the associated microorganisms are selected for their chemical ability to degrade, absorb, convert to an inert form, and remove toxins from the soil.

[108] Large amounts of noise pollution not only lead to lower property values and high frustration, they can be damaging to human hearing and health.

Examples of the detriment of continual noise on humans to include: "hearing impairment, hypertension and ischemic heart disease, annoyance, sleep disturbance, and decreased school performance."

[113] Harvesting fruits and vegetables initiates the enzymatic process of nutrient degradation which is especially detrimental to water soluble vitamins such as ascorbic acid and thiamin.

Focusing on improving the aesthetics and community relationships and not only on the plant yield, is the best way to maximize the positive effect of urban farms on a neighborhood.

[121] This is especially true in American inner-cities where a history of racist practices have contributed to the development of food deserts in the low-income, minority areas of the urban core.

Thus, urban agriculture can help improve conditions in poor communities, where residents experience higher levels of stress due to a perceived lack of control over the quality of their lives.

[126] Urban agriculture may improve the livability and built environment in communities that lack supermarkets and other infrastructure due to the presence of high unemployment caused by deindustrialization.

[125] Creating a community-based infrastructure for urban agriculture means establishing local systems to grow and process food and transfer it from farmer to consumer.

[131] Projects around the world seek to enable cities to become 'continuous productive landscapes' by cultivating vacant urban land and temporary or permanent kitchen gardens.

However, to create a consumer dependency on urban agriculture and to introduce local food production as a sustainable career for farmers, markets would have to be open regularly.

Urban Farm located in the city of Chicago
An urban farm in Chicago .
An artist's impression of the Aztec Empire's capital city of Tenochtitlan. Chinampas are prominently featured in the foreground, but visible throughout the city.
A gardening demonstration in New York City, 1922
An example of the urban agriculture propaganda deployed by the government of the United States during the world wars. "Uncle Sam" encourages the audience to grow their own food in their own gardens, as both an act of patriotism and explicitly to reduce food costs during war rationing.
1975 image of Liz Christy in one of her Lower East Side gardens, as one example of NYC's Green Guerillas.
An example of urban agriculture in Wilmington, Delaware. The garden is secondary to the operating organization's wider mission of reducing youth truancy. While crops are grown, flowers have been placed around the perimeter explicitly to attract community members to the garden.
A cow at Mudchute Park and Farm, Tower Hamlets, London. Note Canary Wharf in the background.
The Project Eats Rooftop Farm in New York City
A tidy front yard flower and vegetable garden in Aretxabaleta , Spain
Close up of plants
A mixed garden bed of plants for food and for bees and insects in a community based urban farm in New Zealand
Tomato plant at Roof garden in Mymensingh , Bangladesh
A sprouting glass jar with mung beans in it
The needs of urban landscaping can be combined with those of suburban livestock farmers. ( Kstovo , Russia)
A vegetable garden in the square in front of the train station in Ezhou , China
Edible oyster mushrooms growing on used coffee grounds
A windowfarm , incorporating discarded plastic bottles into pots for hydroponic agriculture in urban windows
A small urban farm in Amsterdam
Rooftop urban farming at the Food Roof Farm in downtown St. Louis, Missouri
Urban agriculture project in the La Romita section of Colonia Roma , Mexico City
Tomato plants growing in a pot farming alongside a small house in New Jersey in fifteen garbage cans filled with soil grew over 700 tomatoes during the summer of 2013.