Urban horticulture
After the nineteenth century, Horticulture was then selectively restored in some urban spaces as a response to the unhealthy conditions of factory neighborhoods and cities began seeing the development of parks.
[4] Early urban horticulture movements majorly served the purposes of short term welfare during recession periods, philanthropic charity to uplift "the masses" or patriotic relief.
The main goals of this movement include cleaning up neighborhoods, pushing out drug dealing that occurs at empty lots, growing and preserving food for consumption, restoring nature to industrial areas, and bringing the farming traditions to urban cities.
Some gardens are linked to public housing projects, schools through garden-based learning programs, churches and social agencies and some even employ those who are incarcerated.
Community gardens which are now a large part of the urban horticulture movement are different from the earlier periods of grand park development in that the latter only served to free the people from the industrialism.
In addition a community garden is more beneficial and engaging than a mere lawn or park and serves as a valuable access to nature where wilderness is unavailable.
This movement helped create and sustain relationships between city dwellers and the soil and contributed to a different kind of urban environmentalism that did not have any characteristics of reform charity.
As community gardens cannot actually compete with market-based land uses, it is essential to find other ways to understand their various benefits such as their contribution to social, human, and financial well-being.
Trees, grass, and flower gardens, due to their presence as well as visibility, increase people's life satisfaction by reducing fatigue and irritation and restoring a sense of calm.
A recent study showed a reduced body mass index and lower weight in community gardeners compared with their non-gardening counterparts.
Gardening programs in inner-city schools have become increasingly popular as a way to teach children not only about healthy eating habits, but also to encourage students to become active learners.
Because weather and soil conditions are in a state of constant change, students learn to adapt their thinking and creatively problem solve, depending on the situations that arise.
[citation needed] Gardens and other green spaces also increase social activity and help in creating a sense of place, apart from their various other purposes such as enhancing the community by mediating environmental factors.
There is also a huge disparity in the availability of sources that provide nutritious and affordable foods especially around urban centers which have problems of poverty, lack of public transport and abandonment by supermarkets.
[citation needed] A report of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Growing greener cities in Africa,[16] states that market gardening – i.e. irrigated, commercial production of fruit and vegetables in areas designated for the purpose, or in other urban open spaces – is the single most important source of locally grown, fresh produce in 10 out of 27 African countries for which data are available.
Market gardening produces most of all the leafy vegetables consumed in Accra, Dakar, Bangui, Brazzaville, Ibadan, Kinshasa and Yaoundé, cities that, between them, have a total population of 22.5 million.
[citation needed][17] Starting in the 1980s, Latin American governments came to see urban agroecology and horticulture not only as an agricultural practice but as a revolutionary tool aimed at restructuring society along more equitable and sustainable lines.
[19][18] The Green Revolution as well as globalism prompted South American governments to invest less in agriculture and incentivized higher expenditure on food imports, often due to international economic pressure.
