Spatial planning, peri-urban agriculture, food security Research Papers (original) (raw)

Urban areas are high-complex living organisms and are subjects to the constant transformations produced by the changing requirements that vary according to the political, socio-economic, sociocultural and above all changing climate factors. Resilience, which is mostly used as an ecological term, is still an abstract concept in urban design but can be reinterpreted in the context of urbanism, as there is a considerable similarity between the urban areas and living organisms. Urban resilience can be defined as the capacity of the cities to absorb shocks and perturbations without undergoing major alterations in its functional organization such as economic, physical and social systems. Resilient cities are not only surviving potential risks and threats, but also catching the positive outcomes that the changes and transformations might bring. Resilience, for these reasons, becomes a necessity in order to reduce the negative impacts of the above-mentioned changes and increase the safety of the cities.

- by and +1
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- Resilience, Urban Planning, Resilient City, Productivity

The non consideration of how to address existing influence of housing quality on urban resident wellbeing across different urban areas has been identified as one of the major reasons or challenges for the poor quality housing in most developing countries -Nigeria inclusive. Significantly, this phenomenon has produced housing misuses, wastage of scarce sources and the creation of an apathetic citizenry. Premised on the foregoing, this paper examines the effect of, influence of housing quality on urban resident wellbeing in the determination of qualitative housing in Osogbo, Nigeria.

- by Olusola Onifade
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- Urban Planning, Computer Aided Design, Rural Development, Urban Studies

‘Suppose I told you that New York City had the opportunity to create thousands of new jobs – but we just weren’t doing it. You’d probably be pretty upset. Now suppose I went on to say that we’ve actually had that opportunity for years, we just weren’t paying close enough attention. I bet you’d all have some choice words for me – the kind that shouldn’t be repeated in polite company.
Alright, now suppose I told you that by taking steps to create those jobs, we could also improve public health and reduce our energy consumption. We could fight childhood obesity and asthma. We could keep millions of dollars in the local economy, instead of sending those dollars across the country or around the world. But we still weren’t doing it.
Well the fact is, we have been ignoring those exact opportunities. For years, we’ve been missing a chance to create a greener, healthier, and more economically vibrant city. How? By ignoring the enormous potential of our city’s food system.’ (Quinn 2009)
There are currently high levels of food insecurity in South African cities. The SANHANES survey found national prevalence of households at risk of hunger to be 28% and those experiencing hunger at 26%. The equivalent figures in urban informal areas were 32% and 36% respectively. The figures are reinforced by case studies which consistently show high levels of food insecurity. With regard to trends: nationally food insecurity was in decline, but it appears to have plateaued. Ever increasing food prices and other price shocks suggest that levels of urban food insecurity are unlikely to improve.
Urban food insecurity is characterised by low dietary diversity, high malnutrition and obesity, and distinct hunger seasons. This is caused by both household and extra-household scale factors including: Household income, income stability, household structure, and household asset base. The extra-household scale factors include geographic access to a range of sources of food, access to transport and stability of food prices.
Households themselves engage in strategies to mitigate food insecurity, which may increase household vulnerability to food insecurity in the longer term. These include consumption smoothing and accessing credit.
The brief for the study requested a particular focus on urban agriculture as this is the most common programmatic response by municipalities to food insecurity. However, in reviewing national large-scale surveys and smaller case studies, very little evidence was found to support the assertion that urban agriculture is an effective means of addressing food insecurity for the most vulnerable households. Uptake of urban food production varies widely across the country, but is generally low. There is an extremely weak evidence base on what is being produced, by whom and how production impacts food security. Without such data the dominance of urban agriculture as the programmatic response cannot be justified.

This paper deals with urban agriculture (UA) in rural settlements and its diverse forms, functions and services. In the introduction, we define the phenomenon of UA and discuss its main roles, challenges and the objectives of the international COST Action Urban Agriculture Europe. We provide an overview of the most important functions and benefits of UA. Further on, we discuss priorities, aims and possibilities of an integrated rural development and we mention rural development tools related to urban agriculture, like agritourism including also wine tourism, local food markets and labelled regional products of urban and peri-urban agriculture. We provide a categorisation of UA in rural settlements into three main groups: production gardens at family houses and blocks of flats, vineyards and orchards. A description of these diverse forms is provided concerning their functional, spatial, visual and perceptual features and characteristics. The aim is to improve the understanding of UA typology in the context of rural settlements. Concerning products of urban and periurban agriculture, we discuss the importance of self food supply, farm-gate sales and local food markets and their potential contribution to countryside development. We point out the importance of regional product labelling for an integrated rural development and we arrive at the statement, that initiatives and strategies like Slow Food ® , Short Food Supply Chain or the mentioned Regional Product Labelling represent tools supporting a sustainable development of rural areas by their multifunctional urban agriculture.

- by Attila Tóth
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- Resilience, Food Systems, Local food, Rural Development

Planning of the peri-urban area is one of the significant challenges in coming decades that most of third world cities
have to face. Rajarhat New Town a recently developed major planned satellite township located in the peri urban
areas of Kolkata. Township project was officially announced by the government of west Bengal on the 1st June
1995. The paper have two main sections first part dealt with the evolution of the peri-urban areas of Kolkata and
second part composed of the brief history of Rajarhat area, land acquisition process and the role of the state,
urbanization process and its socio-economic implications of the Rajarhat with special emphasis on environment
destruction.
Key words: Peri urban, Satellite town, land acquisition, Urbanization

Even though cities cover approximately only 3 per cent of the earth's land area, they are often located on what previously was prime agricultural land. In line with what was common historically, many cities around the world are now deliberately seeking to promote and expand agricultural production within their borders. Pressure for change is coming from a number of sources, including both governments and private citizens. Potentially, community gardens and domestic backyard food production have an important role to play in this process, but while there now exists a sizeable body of research on the former, there is a serious lack of data on current productive practices in private domestic gardens. While other researchers have asked householders to estimate garden production, we believe this to be the first project to carefully document measured output by multiple households. The paper presents the results of a fine-grained study of 15 selected householders in metropolitan Melbourne. Participants collected detailed daily information about their food production over a three-month period. In addition, two of the respondents had been keeping daily production records continuously for one or more years. The results demonstrate enormous diversity in the food harvested, as well as some extremely high levels of productivity from relatively small domestic spaces. Participants were also questioned about their motivations for engaging in backyard food production and dealing with surpluses.

The ongoing crisis has shown that incumbent food system has been facing challenges. For a resilient and sustainable food system, transitions which shift towards sustainability, attention to public health and wellbeing as well as inclusiveness is compulsory. To overcome these challenges, driving a stepwise policy transformation, responsive and adaptive policy mixes and addressing citizens to drive sustainability are pivotal. This article represents two roadmaps which are designated for Nilüfer, Bursa. The roadmaps aim at including policy headlines/priorities as well as local needs and plural variations of collectivity to ensure a sustainable food system transition. The roadmaps are composed of two scalar levels one of which is macrolevel; Nilüfer Food Policy Roadmap while the other is micro-level; Nilüfer Living Lab Roadmap.

Research on food planning has been recently proposed in North American and European planning to account for how cities might change their food provision to respond to the rising demands for a more sustainable and ethical food system. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the agro-ecological potential of the Lisbon city region, Ribatejo e Oeste, to increase its Regional Food Self-Reliance (RFSR), through adopting demand restraint and food system relocalization approaches to food system sustainability. Three new diet scenarios were considered: meat-based, plant-based and strict vegetarian, defined in accordance with healthy dietary patterns. We used agro-climatic and agro-edaphic agricultural suitability models to evaluate the agro-ecological potential for RFSR, and proposed the use of Foodshed Landscape Plans within a landscape planning methodology. Results showed the extent of local food production that could improve food self-reliance, with 72%, 76%, 84% of total food needs in the meat-based, plant-based, and strict vegetarian scenarios, respectively. Thus, food system transformation by means of relocalization, is therefore ecologically feasible and would ensure the sustainable use of the ecological basis of food security. Additionally, a dietary transition would imply significant land sparing, which strengthens the demand restraint perspective for a transition to food system sustainability.

South Africa’s towns and cities experience high levels of food insecurity.i Although municipalities have no direct mandate to address food insecurity, many municipalities have attempted to alleviate food insecurity. These efforts have generally focused on the promotion of urban agriculture. However, the vast majority of urban residents obtain the vast majority of their food via market sources, formal and informal. This policy brief argues that the informal food retail sector is an important contributor to the food security of the urban poor, and therefore requires greater policy attention.
Supermarkets and informal food traders are important components of the urban food system and deliver different food security benefits to urban residents. Although supermarkets are generally cheaper per unit food, and are recognized to have higher food safety standards, they are not always responsive to the food security needs of the poor. Informal food retailers, including spazas and street traders, sell in smaller unit sizes, operate for longer hours and will often offer credit. These make them an important contributor to household food security. Therefore, a mix of retail types is important to ensure food security for the poor.
At present municipalities do not consider the food retail sector, and their role in shaping the food retail environment, as an element in ensuring food security. As a result local government planning and management of food retail, formal and informal, takes a purely local economic development or livelihoods approach. Informal traders have been over-regulated on the basis of food safety.
There is a need for a new approach to food security. Although there is a lack of formal mandate for local government, there are many activities taking place within existing mandates that impact the food system and therefore food security. Municipalities should therefore assess their role in enhancing or hindering food security. This policy brief recommends the following: a) Integrated (formal and informal sector) food retail planning should be a component of any food security strategy; b) The sale of healthy foods near transport hubs should be incentivized; and c) Municipalities should engage informal trader associations to co-develop appropriate means to ensure food safety