The 1920s marked the start of a regional planning movement in the United States during which many leaders attempted to transform conventional industrialized food systems in place.1 It wasn’t until the environmental justice movement, however, that mobilization began to grow, cultivating ideals of “community empowerment, social justice, and reduction of environmental risks to minority and rural populations.”2 The 1950’s sustainable agriculture movement—also referred to as a food security movement—quickly followed, redefining local, small-scale farmers. Lastly, the food security movement focused on alternative food systems, promoting regionally based, just, and affordable food products.
The food security movement declared food to be a right, not a commodity, encouraging reconnection to the environment and instilling a more conscious way of life. In her 2004 article titled, Building a Common Table: The Role for Planning in Community Food Systems, Marcia Caton Campbell implored city planners to facilitate the integration of socially and environmentally just food systems into local city plans.3 Today, too many city centers act as repositories for empty, abandoned lots that do not lend to a city’s livability. Inherent in these vacant spaces is the potential for community gardens that align with the underlying principals of food security.
Urban agriculture provides tremendous benefits to the environment, surrounding community, and the local economy. Urban agriculture (UA) fortunately has earned the honor of being an up-and-coming fad in major urban cities including Oakland, Philadelphia, and New York. Especially as “food deserts”—which are urban communities without access to fresh, healthy, affordable food—begin to characterize more and more impoverished urban neighborhoods, the lack of access to affordable, quality food is of growing concern. UA is “generally characterized by closeness to markets, high competition for land, limited space, [and] use of urban resources such as organic solid wastes and wastewater.”4 Furthermore, it is not so much the location of the garden plots in cities that distinguishes these food systems; rather, it is how these systems are intertwined within the greater urban system, including everything from policy to urban markets and prices. UA is also recognized for reducing food insecurity by providing a healthier, more equitable and accessible food system and making productive land that would have otherwise been left barren.
The urban field has taken action towards utilizing planning practices to engage in the food systems dialogue, acting as an advocate for alternative food systems. Through their involvement, local city planners can create healthy, safe, accessible, and livable communities that can support a diverse group of people. Planners can facilitate the implementation of community gardens by revising local land-use plans to include comprehensive food security measures that support entrepreneurial UA projects and community gardens. Many cities have permitted community gardens through their zoning codes and frequently include UA projects under the recreation and open space component of general plans, as they are “important to the preservation of an area’s rural heritage, and a major use for a city’s surplus property.”5 If planners are able to integrate community gardens into local land-use plans, implementing these projects will be a thousand fold easier for private groups or organization as they can avoid cumbersome, bureaucratic processes of getting projects approved. Thus, planners are essential to the food security and alternative food systems movement that will in turn empower community members, improve well-being and public health, reduce inequity, and protect the environment. Let’s take a look at some of the impacts that urban agriculture can have on society.
Impact 1: Environmental Benefits
UA can offer a number of benefits to the surrounding urban environment. First and foremost, production and consumption are in one locale. This reduces dependency on petroleum by decreasing the number of accumulated fuel-based agrochemicals. This also reduces reliance upon petroleum, which can stabilize food prices, as prices are no longer dependent on volatile prices of fuel.
UA also contributes to the greening of a city as it beautifies the urban landscape and leads to a productive use of urban space by reclaiming unused and abandoned lands.7 The addition of greenery to a predominately gray landscape also reduces the heat island effect—an effect that makes urban areas hotter than rural areas. These urban gardens act as a natural storm water catchment system and reduce instances of compost and wastewater for irrigation.
Impact 2: Social and Economic Benefits
Community gardens have been successful in bringing communities together and necessarily connecting people back to the Earth. They allow people to understand and appreciate where their food comes from and increase social livability as it unifies community members and engenders morale, as well as a sense of belonging. They also have incredible healing qualities both for the mind and for the Earth.
UA has tremendous impacts on disadvantaged groups as it successfully reintegrates them into urban networks, giving them a chance to improve their lives. It also creates a job market for local farmers that produce and sell locally, and can act as a supplemental income for impoverished families that would otherwise spend approximately 60 percent of their income buying groceries from their local supermarkets. The establishment of these gardens subsequently promotes micro-enterprises for agricultural inputs, processing, packaging, marketing, and transportation.9 Furthermore, UA can increase consumer purchasing power which undeniably strengthens and supports local economies.
Impact 3: Potential Health Implications
There are risks involved with UA, as there are with most things in life, but they are avoidable if proper precautions are taken. The main health implications of UA include: crop contamination from pathogens due to irrigation with improperly treated waste water, or fertilization with organic solid wastes; crop contamination from uptake of heavy metals in soils; and disease transmission during the processing, packaging and marketing processes.10 All of the above risks can be mitigated, however, by implementing policies that mandate active management of production processes that may lead to significant health risks.
The Future of Urban Agriculture
UA is a budding planning mechanism to promote healthy, safe, equitable, and livable communities. The UA movement fully encompasses the values of the environmental justice, sustainable agriculture, and food security movements that together strive to empower local communities by providing affordable, justly produced food. Community gardens provide benefits to the environment, surrounding community, and local economies, but must be undertaken with precaution, as there are associated health risks. Despite these drawbacks, UA is widely accepted all around the world, and has for the most part, improved community well-being.
