A nice little lobbying piece in Crain's New York for the creation and protection of the greater Tri-State's regional "foodshed" in New York's Hudson valley. Every article trumpeting its importance raises the issue and awareness. Tying it to the safeguarding of water is genius!
-Other welcome developments, small cities considering green roof legislation and its applicability as when calculating "permeable surface" percentages.
-If you have a few moments, check out this Chris Reed interview about landscape architecture and the future of urban life.
-Grist poses a great question. "What if we connected the people most in need of healthy food with the expensive, nutrient-dense greens that just happen to be growing between the cracks in their driveways?" That sounds a lot better than "Can urban foraging actually feed poor people?"
-Next month Abu Dhabi will have a motley crew attending the two day 2015 Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture (GFIA). Over 300 next generation agricultural solutions will be on display.
-The National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon is outlining a 20 year Master Plan for it's five-acre campus. It includes a food forest and aquaponic system. Looks like they already have a healing garden.
-Last, but not least for today is a paper assessing urban and peri-urban agriculture, particularly in Asia. A fascinating read, it has several great statistics. Like the fact that "70 percent of households in developing countries are engaged in some kind of farming and food production"!
ianScientist (Jan. 20,
2015) - By Dilrukshi Handunnetti - Irrigated urban croplands can improve
global food security and play a larger role in densely populated and
increasingly water scarce regions like South Asia, says a new study.
Pay Drechsel, scientist at the Colombo-based International Water
Management Institute (IWMI) and co-author of the study, published in
Environmental Research Letters in November, says urban and peri-urban
agricultural areas worldwide are larger than the total area under rice
cultivation in South Asia.
The paper recognizes a global trend of food production taking on an
increasingly urban flavor, with an estimated 456 million hectares—an
area about the size of the European Union—being under cultivation in and
around the world’s cities, challenging the rural orientation of most
agriculture research and development work.
South and East Asia comprise 49 percent of urban irrigated croplands and
56 percent of the non-urban irrigated areas globally. These two regions
account for 26 percent of urban rain-fed croplands and 22 percent of
non-urban rain-fed croplands.
Drechsel says, “The study documents that 70 percent of households in
developing countries are engaged in some kind of farming and food
production and challenges the notion that food production, far from
being a rural phenomenon, is commonly occurring within cities.”
The study says irrigation is more common on city farms than rural farms,
intensifying water demands in sprawling urban zones. It further
highlights how urban agriculture—particularly in South Asia—contributes
to food security, puts marginal lands into productive use, assists in
flood control, increases income opportunities for the poor and
strengthens urban biodiversity.
Drechsel says India is a good example of an urbanizing country which is
already more peri-urban than rural.
“Feeding the cities with food and water is changing the Indian
agricultural landscape. There is more competition between urban and
rural needs for water and there are strong urban markets but also
significant pollution. Urban and peri-urban farming is operating in this
interface,” he says.
The study shows that three out of four cities surveyed in the global
South were using wastewater for irrigation, predominately for local
market sale and livelihood support.
“For example, downstream of Hyderabad in India, the only available
water for irrigation is the city’s wastewater which is only partially
treated and used for the production of fodder grass and rice, supporting
about 50,000 people.”
A more recent study shows that in India, the conscious and safe use of
wastewater could help irrigate an additional 1.1 million hectares.
In Sri Lanka, Drechsel says, urbanization is most obvious in the
island’s Western Province where urban farming is also receiving policy
recognition as a means to support subsistence needs or as additional
income source, mostly for women.
The article can be found at: Thebo et al. (2014) Global Assessment of
Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture: Irrigated and Rainfed Croplands.
-----
Source: SciDev.Net.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of
AsianScientist or its staff.
Tags: Agriculture, India, South Asia, Sri Lanka, Urban Development,
Water Resource Management
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http://www.asianscientist.com/2015/01/features/farming-town/
