1. Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA):
an important strategy to building resilient cities ?!
The Role of Urban Agriculture in building resilient cities
Conference UPA, Monrovia, Liberia, 14-15 February 2013
René van Veenhuizen, RUAF Foundation

2. Urban and peri-urban agriculture
• Agricultural production (crops, trees, livestock, fish) in and
around urban areas for food (vegetables, eggs, milk, meat, ..)
and other products (e.g. medicinal and aromatic
herbs, fodder, fuel, flowers and ornamental plants, water
storage, a/o)….
• And related inputs supply, transport, processing, marketing
and support services…
• Often combined with other functions (recreation, urban
greening, recycling of wastes, capturing CO2, etcetera), as part
of the urban system

3. Multiple Benefits
ECOLOGICAL
(Healthy City) SOCIAL
(Inclusive City)
ECONOMIC
(Productive City )
Multiple Levels
And Actors
Rehabilitate
Resilience
Transformation

4. Variety of urban farming systems
a) In the urban spaces used

5. b) in main line of production

6. C) in level of technologies used

7. d) in degree of formality, organisation and
marketing

8. Nothing New? Urban Population is projected to double
from 300 – 600 Million in the next 25 years
- Urbanisation
- Urbanisation of Poverty 70 % living of less than US 2 per day
A healthy diet would cost cost almost all of its
- Food Insecurity / Prices income of the poor
- Depleting Resources
Cities not ready for changing climate:
- Climate Change -Ecologically unfriendly configuration
-Often lack effective waste management
 City Region Food Systems
 African Green Urbanism (UN Habitat)

9. Renewed interest
- RUAF, Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food
Security
- Urban Harvest (CGIAR)
- FAO, Food for the Cities,
- IWMI (CGIAR), International Water Management Institute:
resource recovery
- START, Climate Change Adaptation and UPA
- UN Habitat, Cities and Climate Change Initiative
- ICLEI, Resilient Cities
- UNEP, UPA and Environment
- AFSUN, Africa Food Security Urban Network
- USAID, EU, IDRC, Sida, GiZ, SDC, etc…..

10. ACTUAL URBAN CHALLENGES; CAN URBAN AGRICULTURE MAKE A
CONTRIBUTION?
1. Growing urban poverty and
social exclusion
2. Growing food insecurity and
malnutrition in cities
3. Growing need to enhance
resilience of the cities and
reduce climate change/disaster
risks and ecological foot print
4. Growing waste management
problems
5. Growing need for green spaces
and recreational services for the
urban population

11. Is UPA contributing to reducing
urban poverty and social exclusion?
• UPA is an important primary or
secondary source of income for large
numbers of poor urban people
(RUAF, FAO)
• In market oriented UPA often good net
returns to capital invested are realised
(table) … (ODI, FAO Studies)
• UPA stimulates SME’s in compost
production, food processing, marketing
and agro-tourism (green jobs)
• UPA is often used to facilitate social
integration of newcomers and
disadvantaged groups and community
development

12. Integration in employment generating strategies
•Exploring the potential of green jobs: UPA as a driver for job creation in clean
energy production through waste re-use...
...and productive
decentralised
waste
management
Or micro-
enterprise
development
 One job per 110 sq. meter (FAO)

13. Is UPA enhancing urban food security & nutrition?
• About 15-20% of the world’s food is produced
in urban areas; For perishable products this may
rise to 60 % or more (table)
• poor urban households produce 20-60 % of
their food themselves (e.g. East Jakarta 18
%, Kampala 50 %, Harare 60 %)
•….. AFSUN, RUAF studies ……
• Producing households are less vulnerable to
economic crisis and increases in food prices
than non-producing households (RUAF)
•The costs of supplying food from distant
sources are rising rapidly; often only
limited cold storage transport facilities available
While < 10 % of SSA homes have refrigerator

14. In Africa
• 70 % of urban poor households normally
source food from the informal sector, of
which 31 % do so on a daily basis (informal
markets, street foods, small shops)
• 22 % of households obtain food from their
own gardens (on home plot or on public
land) but only 8 per cent get food from this
source at least once a week.
• 40 % of urban residents are engaged in some
sort agricultural activity, including
production of staple
crops, vegetables, fruit, milk, etc.
• In Nairobi, Kibera, 11,000 households have
“sack gardens”, which provide food and sales
to cater for monthly rent.
(sources: AFSUN, FAO, RUAF)

15. Is UPA contributing to disaster reduction and cities’ adaptation
to climate change?
• UPA reduces the urban energy consumption (less
transport, cooling, packaging)
• UPA reduces floods and land slides by keeping flood plains free
from construction, reducing erosion and run off and facilitating
water infiltration and -storage
• Productive reuse of urban organic wastes in UPA reduces methane
emission from landfills & use of fosile minerals
• UPA improves the urban micro-climate (wind
breaks, shade, reduction of urban heat, dust and CO2) and
conserves biodiversity.

16. Is UPA contributing to
reducing urban wastes and fresh water problems?
• Urban wastewater and organic wastes contain large amounts of
nutrients with high economic value
• 14-17% increase of water supply for irrigation in agriculture is
needed by 2030 to meet dietary needs; but fresh water
availability is quickly declining.
• Productive reuse of urban wastewater and organic wastes will:
a. enable year round production close to the consumers,
b. reduce the pressure on freshwater resources without
hampering food production
c. reduce the need for artificial fertilisers
and methane emissions from landfills
d. Contribute to cost recovery of investment in
Sanitation and treatement

17. *) Source Separation and Re-use
*) Service Orientation….By creating value
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Cagayan de Oro, Philippines A market for Human manure is being developed.
Improved production (12% - Community gets improved sanitation and pays for
higher yield, earlier collection of waste
- Farmers pay for fertilizers at market prices
flowering, greener leaves
- Willingness to pay is high with farmers, but does
(palm, mango) and healthier not cover transport
crop stand) when urine applied
*) Productive Sanitation
*) Urban and Rural Linkages in Food
*) Multiple Use of Water (MUS) Production

18. Health and Environmental risks
• Contamination of crops with pathogens due to irrigation
with contaminated water or unhygienic handling of food
• Diseases transferred to humans by rodents and flies
attracted by agriculture (tick born diseases) or scavenging
domestic animals
• Contamination of crops: due to a: overuse of
agrochemicals (occurs mainly in areas with many years of
intensive horticulture) and b. due to air, soil and water
pollution by industry or heavy traffic.
• Contamination of groundwater due to excessive use of
agrochemicals or nitrate-rich manure or wastewater.
• Non-farming neighbours may complain of visual
untidiness, dust, smell and noise created by the urban
farms
 Regulation, Risk minimisation, Safety Guidelines

19. •Drip and furrow irrigation
•Sedimentation ponds
•Cessation of irrigation
•Filter
•Low water & soil splash
•Improved water fetching
•Increased retention time
•On-farm treatment

20. SOME STRATEGIES THAT CITIES APPLY TO
PROMOTE URBAN AGRICULTURE AND CITY
RESILIENCE
 Creation of an enabling policy environment (recognition, policies and
legislation, institutional home
 Reducing health and environmentl risks
(coordination, zoning, awareness, active source pollution control)
 Enhancing access to land and use security (mapping, zoning, tax
incentives)
 Support to Farmers in organisation, access to land, finance, marketing
(support organisation, access to credit, extension support, value chain
development, farmers markets).

21. Liberia
Multi Stakeholder Platforms
Land use maps and develop
in Greater
zoning and negotiations with
Monrovia, Tubmanburg and
the farmers in Greater
Gbarnga
UPA – including farmer Monrovia and Tubmanburg
markets – as part of greening
of Monrovia
UPA in New
Ordinances of
Tubmanburg and Urban Farmer Organisation
Gbarnga FLUPFA
Curriculum Development

22. Freetown/ Western Area Rural District, Sierra Leone
Zoning and allocating low lying
areas and valleys for agriculture
to reduce impacts of
flooding, storm water runoff is
reduced, and excess water is
stored and infiltrating in these
green open spaces
Political agreement brokered by
Freetown Urban and Peri Urban
Agriculture Platform (FUPAP)
•Min. of Lands maps and demarcates the areas;
•Local authorities sign agreements with farmers groups;
•Min. of Agriculture provide extension services and inputs;
•Finance and Credit Institutions accept as collaterals
•FUPAP: Conflict Mgt + Monitoring Impact

23. Cape Town, South Africa
1. Protection of 450 hectare of wetlands within
the built up city as horticulture cum ecological
area (against pressure of building companies)
2. Provision of vacant land, seed, tools and
water to groups of urban poor for small scale
horticulture
3. Establishment of “short chain” marketing
schemes (producer2consumer)

24. The Peepoo value chain in Kibera
1 2 3 4 5
Local semi- Women micro- Personal Drop-points Processed into
manual entrepreneurs Home Toilet with refund commercial
production fertiliser
School Toilet
Bag gardens

25. Colombo, Sri Lanka
1. Integration of urban agriculture as part of slum and lane upgrading
(beautification, drainage, shade, consumption)
2. Housing design and plot regulations take into account micro-farming
requirements (growing on walls and window sills, location with regards to
solar access; limiting maximum built-up area)

26. 3. Diffusion of “low space” technologies

27. Lima, Peru
1.Participatory design of multi-functional
“productive parks”
2.Reuse of wastewater to irrigate parks
and urban forests (greening; recreation;
income generation through community
nurseries)

28. 3. Electricity company is leasing land under power lines to groups of urban
poor to prevent illegal building on these strips

29. Belo Horizonte, Brazil
• Major urban agriculture programme
(as part of national Zero Hunger policy)
• Promotion of small scale organic
urban horticulture (technical assistance,
credit , certification, farmers’ markets)
• Support to associative food enterprises
• Local food procurement by government
offices and social programmes)

30. Almere, The Netherlands
Urban agriculture as part of the city food strategy: is it possible to produce in
Agromere 20% of the daily food basket of future Almere with 350.000
inhabitants?
Design Agromere: 180 ha urban farming (88 ha animal husbandry; 25 ha fruits and
vegetables; 62 ha arable farming; 5 ha horticulture)
What would be the climate impact due to production of fresh food close to city
(less transport, cooling, packaging processing) ?
Reduction:
-16 million km transport
-Energy use of 11.000 households Almere
-GHG emission of 2.000 Dutch
inhabitants Agromere

31. Thank you
www.ruaf.org

32. RUAF
• International network of 8 Resource centers on Urban Agriculture and
Food security
• Working in and around 20 cities in 17 countries
• City partners and local and international partners
City Programmes including:
Facilitating a Multi-stakeholder Forum MPAP
Strategic Action planning and Integration of urban
agriculture in land use
planning, institutional programs and budgets
Knowledge generation and dissemination
Strengthening (poor) urban producer groups
and enhancing their capacity to innovate their
production systems;
Enhancing access to local financing
National Policy Lobbying
Productive re-use of water and waste water
Adaptation to Climate Change

33. City Percentage of urban consumption met by urban
agriculture
All Eggs Poultry Milk Pork
vegetables
La Paz (2000) 30
Dakar (2000) 70-80 65-70
Dar Es Salaam 90 60
(2000)
Accra (2003) 90
Nouakchott (1999) 90
Shanghai (2000) 60 90 50 90- 50
100
Hanoi (2000; 2004) 30-75 40 50 50
(seasonal)
Vientiane (2004) 20-100 back
(seasonal)

34. City Typical monthly net income in US$ for
irrigated peri-urban vegetable
production
Accra 40-50
Bangui 320 (producers), 140 (retailers)
Brazzaville 140-170 (producers), 120 (retailers)
Cameroon 69
Lagos 120
Ouagadougou 25-100 (70)
Yaoundé 34-67
Ho Chi Minh City 40-125 (80)
Jakarta 30-50 back