User:Nathan.brenn/Urban agriculture
[1]Legend:
copyedited material - underlined
original article material - no bold
my original additions - bolded text[1]
Agroecological[edit]
Main article: Agroecology
Under an agroecological framework, urban agriculture alleviates much more than simply food insecurity by also encouraging discourse about all facets of community wellness from physical and mental health to community connectedness. It has the potential to play a role as a "public space, as an economic development strategy, and as a community-organizing tool" *ADD CITATION BACK**.
Benefits[edit]
The benefits that UPA UA brings along to cities that implement this practice are numerous. The transformation of cities from only consumers of food to generators of agricultural products contributes to sustainability, improved health, and poverty reduction/mitigation alleviation.
- UA creates circular energy loops in which food is consumed in the same place it is produced and waste is not exported to the peripheral rural areas.
assists to close the open-loop system in urban areas characterized by the importation of food from rural zones and the exportation of waste to regions outside the city or town. - Wastewater and organic solid waste can be transformed into resources for growing agriculture products: the former can be used for irrigation, the latter as fertilizer.
- Vacant urban areas can be used for agriculture production instead of sitting unused[2]
Other natural resources can be conserved.The use of wastewater for irrigation improveswater managementand increases the availability of fresh water for drinking and household consumption.- UPA can help to preserve bioregional ecologies from being transformed into cropland.
- Urban agriculture saves energy (e.g. energy consumed in transporting food from rural to urban areas).
- Local production of food
alsoallows savings inreduces transportation costs, storage, and in product loss, what results in food cost reduction. - U
PA UA improves the quality of the urban environment through greening and thus, a reduction in pollution [1] - Urban agriculture also makes the city a healthier place to live by improving the quality of the environment.
(may consider deleting this or integrating into the previous bullet point) - UPA is a very effective tool to fight against hunger and malnutrition since it facilitates the access to food by an impoverished sector of the urban population.
Poverty alleviation: It is known that a A large part of the people involved in urban agriculture are the urban poor. In developing countries, the majority of urban agricultural production is for self-consumption, with surpluses being sold in the market. According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), urban poor consumers spend 60–80% of their income on food, making them very vulnerable to higher food prices.
- UPA provides food and creates savings in household expenditure on consumables, thus increasing the amount of income allocated to other uses.
- UPA surpluses can be sold in local markets, generating more income for the urban poor.
Urban farms are also a proven effective educational tool to teach kids about healthy eating and meaningful physical activity.
- ^ a b c d Altieri, Miguel (2005). "Agroecology and the Search for a Truly Sustainable Agriculture" (PDF).
{{cite web}}: line feed character in|title=at position 12 (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Black farmers in Detroit are growing their own food. But they're having trouble owning the land". The World from PRX. Retrieved 2024-05-11.