Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

4 Urban Agriculture: perceptions an understandingDespite the continued existence and indeed expansion of a wide range of foodproduction activities in cities, as Pires (2011) notes, the very notion of urban agricultureis seen by some as a contradiction in terms – agriculture being something that happensbeyond cities in rural areas. Most definitions of urban agriculture include a variety ofactivities carried out at many different scales, from the domestic to the city-wide.Although definitions vary to some extent by region and country, they are increasinglyembracing this wider range of activities.The general conceptions of urban agriculture offered by our interviewees were similarlybroad and inclusive. They included the following:anything that’s produced in the city, and used by and for the city [IndependentResearcher, Melbourne];putting productive plants in the community [Backyard gardener, Melbourne];agriculture and gardens producing within urban barriers, including peri-urbanzones. It’s not necessarily commercial, it would include backyard production.[Academic researcher, Melbourne].Nevertheless, opinions of what urban agriculture is and what it entails were varied. Oneacademic researcher pointed out that urban agriculture means different things indifferent cultural and geographical contexts, with a particular distinction between theglobal north and the south:It means different things in developing countries. In Australia, it’s backyard andcommunity gardens, and perhaps peri-urban market gardens. Here [in the innercity of Melbourne] it’s generally not commercial-scale, as in US spin farming,which can be done on little blocks of land. In countries like Ghana there arestronger economic drivers and lighter regulation – for example, they use rawsewage to grow food, which obviously creates a transfer of pathogens.Conversely there are benefits with the higher nutrient content of the water[Academic researcher, Melbourne].Others looked to initiatives and approaches overseas as an explanation of what urbanagriculture is, and what it could be in Australia:The model we like is Havana [Cuba], and we ask ourselves how it could bereplicated here. They achieved a 1000% increase in productivity per unit over an11-year period with key factors including intensive research into bio-fungicides,bio-insecticides and integrated pest management, together with the wide diffusionand accessibility of that knowledge. The pro-huerta movement in Argentina hasalso achieved impressive results in urban food production [Academic researcher,Melbourne].An Urban Agriculture Officer from a local government area in Melbourne brought avaluable cross-cultural understanding and experience to these issues. Having workedas a small scale commercial market gardener in the Bay Area of San Francisco andbeing familiar with the burgeoning local food and urban agriculture movement in theUrban food security, urban resilience and climate change 117