Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

highlighting the heavy dependence of the current food system on fossil fuels, whichcreates vulnerabilities in the face of a pending ‘peak oil’ crisis and rising fuel costs.Local food systems that are decentralised and less complex are claimed to be a morerobust model for this region that will help mitigate the effects of peak oil and adapt toclimate change, whilst the production of more staple foods within the urban footprintcan help alleviate food shortages in times of transport crisis or other disruptions to thedistribution system.The positive impacts of urban agriculture clearly extend beyond the production of food.For instance, Corkey (2004) found that a community garden at Sydney’s WaterlooPublic Housing Estate presented a wide range of benefits to residents, including socialand cultural expression, community building and informal education about social andenvironmental sustainability. These characteristics might be considered to be some ofthe key ingredients of greater community resilience if society is to respond to some ofthe predicted ‘global shocks’ associated with peak oil and climate change. This againhighlights the complexity of urban agriculture and the impact that collaborative efforts incommunity food growing can have on society and the environment beyond the calorificand nutritional benefits obtained from locally-grown food.Clearly it is not especially easy to design and carry out empirical studies of the impactof urban agriculture. Like the evaluation of many social practices in complex systems itis difficult and costly to collect robust and reliable data, especially over the long periodsof time that would enable important questions of cumulate benefit and longevity to beanswered. Isolating the specific factors that might contribute to greater urban foodsecurity, to greater social well-being and to improvements in public health arenotoriously difficult but now is perhaps the time to begin these studies if the claims ofurban agriculture are to be properly tested.7. What are the barriers to the more widespread adoption of urbanagriculture in Australian cities?In this section we review studies, as well as drawing on some insights from ourempirical data collection, of the various ways in which urban agriculture is regulated, byplanning and other regimes. We begin with some broad studies of the relationshipsbetween urban planning and food planning and move on to more focussed studies ofparticular urban agricultural practices and how these are dealt with by planningregimes.Little now happens in cities of the developed world, including Australian cities, that isnot subject in some way to regulation by the institutions of government or by legislation.Buildings cannot be erected, land uses changed, commercial activities undertaken,social activities carried out on public land without obtaining the requisite permit,approval or licence. And if the necessary approval has not been granted (andsometimes even if it has) the relevant authority will invariably be contacted by adisgruntled citizen.When Australian cities grew in the 19 th century the taken for granted rights of propertyowners included the right to cultivate their own property and to keep an assortment ofanimals for food. Since then a range of concerns, primarily about public health,neighbourliness and local amenity have presaged the introduction of a complex web ofregulations that limit the scope and practices of urban agriculture.While the regulations driven by public health concerns are typically implemented andenforced by local government officials, probably the most influential regulators of urbanagriculture have been planners (whether called urban planners, town planners,environmental planners or city planners).Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change 94