Agricultural Production in Developing Countries

MSc 551

Seminar Presentation:

Peri-urban Agriculture

Andrew Bradford

Peri-urban Agriculture

• Urbanization• Peri-urban interface• Agriculture• Urban proximity• Food security• Agricultural Efficiency• Sustainability• Risks

Urbanization

• Recent demographic events• Origins: mercantile colonialism• Current: Neo-colonialism, New International

Division of Labour • Push: neglect of rural areas, domination of

cash cropping, civil conflict• Pull: employment, health, education, family

migration patterns

Urban Issues • Shelter• Poverty• Pollution• Violence• Solid waste• Unemployment• Air pollution• Food security• Human effluent

Peri-urban Interface• Defined as the transition zone between rural and urban

areas, i.e. those areas surrounding cities, which are in most ways integrated with the city

• High growth rates (70 percent of rural migrants, in addition to migrants from the city itself) on often marginalized lands

• The distinction between urban and peri-urban depends on the density, types, and patterns of land uses, which also determine the constraints and opportunities for agriculture

Urban Agriculture

• Agriculture within cities

• Refers to small plots (e.g. gardens, verges, rooftops) within a city that are used for growing crops and raising small livestock or diary cows for subsistence or sale in local markets

Peri-urban Agriculture

• Agriculture around cities

• Refers to smallholdings and commercial farm systems located around cities that are growing crops (often horticultural crops, i.e. vegetables and fruit), raising livestock, fish farming (aquaculture), or producing milk and eggs for peri-urban and urban markets

Urban Proximity: Opportunities

• Less need for packaging, storage and transportation

• Potential agricultural jobs and incomes

• Non-market access to food for poor consumers

• Availability of fresh, perishable food

• Proximity to services, including waste treatment facilities

• Waste recycling and re-use possibilities

Urban Proximity: Risks

• Environmental & health risks from inappropriate agricultural and aquacultural practices

• Increased competition for land, water, energy and labour

• Reduced environmental capacity for pollution absorption

Food Security

• Increases quantity of food available

• Enhances food security during times of crisis and severe scarcity

• Enhances freshness of perishable foods reaching urban consumers

• Offers employment opportunities (estimated 800 million urban residents currently active)

Agricultural Efficiency• Cost savings because of proximity to consumers, less

need for extensive & expensive infrastructure for transportation and preservation of perishable products

• Concerns arise over competition for resources (land, water, labour and energy)

• Horticulture: practised by poor & landless, crop species allows year round production, employment & income

• Productive use of under-utilized resources, vacant land, treated wastewater, recycled waste and unemployed labour

Sustainability

• Basic resources conflict (water & soil)

• Higher risk in urban food production

• Requires land use planning which views agriculture as an integral component of urban natural resources system and balances the competitive and synergistic interactions among the users of natural resources (water, land, air, wastes)

Risks• Inappropriate/excessive use of agricultural inputs may

contaminate drinking water sources

• Microbial contamination of soil & water, including pathogens

• Infection from worms, nematodes & hookworms

• Air pollution (carbon dioxide & methane from organic matter, ammonia, nitrous oxide & nitrogen oxide from nitrates)

• Intensive livestock: zoonotic diseases & veterinary public health issues

Conclusion

• Opportunities exist for increased food security, employment, increased resource utilization & environmental enhancement,

• Improvement in quality of life• Requires integrated management, land use planning,

legislation, monitoring & control• Should not be developed in competition with rural

agriculture, concentrate on activities in which it has a comparative advantage (fresh, perishable foods)

References

Girardet, H. (1999). Schumacher Briefings No. 2: Creating Sustainable Cities. Green Books, Dartington.

FAO. (2000) Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture.

http://www.fao.org/unfao/bodies/coag/coag15/docs/xoo76e.doc [17 th November 2000].

Satterthwaite, D. (ed). (1999). The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Cities. Earthscan Publications Ltd, London.

Photographs taken by A. Bradford in Nepal (1998) and Macedonia (2000).