1
INTEGRATING AGRICULTURE INTO URBAN PLANNING AND ACTION:
SOME OPTIONS FOR CITIES 1
by
Henk de Zeeuw, Marielle Dubbeling and Ann Waters-Bayer2
1. THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF URBAN AGRICULTURE
Urban agriculture refers to producing food and fuel within city or town areas directly for the
urban market (including street vending and home consumption). The products are usually
processed and marketed by the producers and their close associates. It includes: crop and animal
production on roadsides, along railroads, in backyards, on rooftops, within utility rights of way,
in vacant lots of industrial estates, on the grounds of schools, prisons and other institutions, etc.;
aquaculture in tanks, ponds and rivers; orchards and vineyards; trees in streets and backyards, on
steep slopes and along rivers; and the recycling and use of urban organic wastes (waste water and
solid waste) as resources, i.e. converting open-loop "disposal" systems in closed-loop "re-use"
systems.
Agricultural use of urban areas forms an integral part of the urban productive system. All
cities and towns have a number of vacant and under-utilised land areas that can be used for urban
agriculture (and often are already used in that way), including areas not suited for building, idle
public or other lands, lands that can have an interim use, community lands and household areas.
When the city grows, the total amount of such "idle" spaces also tends to grow.
The importance of urban agriculture is increasing rapidly (and increasingly recognised) in
Third World countries as well as in Eastern and Central Europe. But also in Western countries
like the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA and in Japan, urban agriculture is growing rapidly
(for instance, from 1980 to 1990 urban agriculture in the USA grew by 17%3).
2. POTENTIALS OF URBAN AGRICULTURE
Urban food security
The scale of urban agricultural production in the world is far above common perceptions. It has
been estimated4 that, in 1993, 15-20% of the world’s food was produced in urban areas,
involving a substantial number of urban families, and that this percentage is on the increase.
1
This paper is based on two recent presentations: one by Henk de Zeeuw to the session on Urban Food
and the Health Challenge at the International Healthy Cities Conference (Athens, 20-23 June 1998),
and one by Marielle Dubbeling and Ann Waters-Bayer to the seminar on “Urban Agri- and
Horticulture in One World” organised by the Green Party on 22 June 1998 in Bonn.
2
ETC Urban Agriculture Programme, POB 64, NL-3830 AB Leusden, Netherlands, E-mail:
office@etcnl.nl; Fax +31-33-4940791.
3
USDA (1992).
4
Smit (1996).
2
Analyses of ongoing trends regarding urban food systems reveal that food security
strategies need to have both inner and external components and that cities need to mount major
efforts to develop plans to enhance urban and peri-urban food production. Even though cities will
remain largely dependent on the input from the rural areas and international supply, cities can
and should consciously pursue a greater degree of self-reliance in food. A shift away from the
present reliance on the highly capitalised and energy-consuming “supermarket” model, based on
external supply of foodstuffs, is urgently needed5.
Studies6 indicate that nutritional self-reliance, in the sense of an urban area producing
half or more of its nutritional requirements, is possible in all but the harshest climates, after
consideration of land and water needs.
Urban environmental management
Urban agriculture contributes to improving the urban environment (or city ecology) by using
urban (organic) wastes as a productive resource, improving the micro-climate, and preventing
erosion and flooding by planting bare lands and steep slopes. Lunven (1992) estimated that one
tenth or more of the world’s population currently eats food produced on waste water (but not
always in a safe way).
Urban agriculture has a conservation function by saving energy (shortening the distance
between the points of production and consumption, and reducing losses in storage and transport)
and urban production of fuelwood (substituting for imported energy sources, reducing pressure
on forests and helping to clean the air in cities).
Income and employment creation for the urban poor
Being the largest component of household expenditure (low-income households spend 50-60%
of their income on basic food and drink), any saving on food expenditure translates into a
significant portion of family income becoming available for other non-food expenditures. If
urban agriculture results in surpluses that are sold, the resulting addition to the income can be
sizeable. Moreover, urban production of food brings down costs of food (savings in transport,
storage, and number of middlemen involved) and improves the accessibility of food for poor
urban families.
Urban farming provides a source of employment not only for urban farmers themselves,
but also for people operating in linked micro-enterprises: input and output industries and
services: herding, collection and selling of feed and manure, production of compost and
vermiculture, processing of agricultural produce, street vending of food, etc.
Improved nutrition and health
Studies reveal that farming urban households have a better nutritional status (as shown by
measurement of caloric and protein intake, stunting and wasting) as compared to non-farming
urban households. Creation of better conditions for families to grow and market vegetables,
livestock, fish, etc. will positively effect (child) nutrition and health, especially in situations
where women gain control over the destination of the produce and revenues from sales.
Community development
5
6
Dahlberg (1997).
Smit et al. (1995).
3
Urban agriculture contributes to community development by leading people to organise
themselves for cleaning up and rehabilitating vacant and degraded land areas and transforming
these into gardens. Not only do such processes remove a unhealthy situation; they also enhance
the quality of the living environment and the self-esteem of the neighbourhood and often also
stimulate other actions for improving the community livelihood.
3. CONSTRAINTS TO DEVELOPMENT OF URBAN AGRICULTURE
The main constraints to the development of urban agriculture are the following:
Prohibitive urban policies and regulations
Although such activities as home-gardening and urban livestock-keeping may be well known by
policymakers and planners, in many cases this knowledge does not result automatically in their
recognising urban agriculture as an important element of the city economy and land-use system.
Often, the importance and potential of urban agriculture are lost behind myths that are the
products of (urban middle-class) socio-cultural biases. Urban agriculture tends to be seen as
merely a ‘left-over’ of rural habits, as only temporary until the people accustom themselves to
urban life, as a marginal activity with little economic importance, as a health risk and source of
pollution that has to be removed, etc.
Cities in Third World countries are often perceived as solidly built up with no area to
spare. Agriculture and urbanisation are viewed typically as conflicting activities. Fear of
contamination by urban agriculture and use of unclean water for food production has, over time,
become institutionalised in law, and led to a reluctance by many governments and city
bureaucracies to contemplate the potential benefits of urban agriculture.
In many cities, agriculture still has an “illegal” status. This creates opportunities for local
officials and policemen to levy “informal taxes”, unpredictable changes in the degree of
tolerance, and frequent harassment of urban farmers.
Such biases, sustained by the limited exposure of policymakers and planners to scientific
information on urban agriculture specifically and on ecological and participatory city
development in general, have led to important legal restrictions on urban agriculture. Often such
restrictions are among the major constraints to urban agriculture. These biases also prevent the
integration of agriculture into urban planning as a competitive form of land use and constrain the
creation of adequate support services.
Limited access to productive resources and insecure land tenure
Urban agriculture is - to a large extent - being done on land that is not owned by the user:
roadsides, riverbanks, along railroads, idle public lands, parks, etc. The use of such areas is, in
principle, transitional and user rights are minimal. However, various systems of informal rent,
lease and inheritance exist.
The quality of the lands to which urban farmers do have access is often very marginal to
start with. In combination with the poverty of the majority of the urban farmers and the insecure
land-tenure situation, this leads to low investments in the land, low productivity and further
deterioration of the soil. Fear of eviction leads people to plant quick-yielding seasonal crops and
to avoid investments in soil quality, tree and shrub components, erosion prevention, waterharvesting measures, etc.
4
Lack of support services and appropriate technologies
Because policymakers and planners generally have little understanding of the potential of urban
agriculture, urban farmers are seldom viewed as a target group for support services such as
training and extension, veterinary services, technical assistance and credit services, or for
supporting infrastructure such as waterpoints and market facilities. Urban farmers especially
complain about the lack of access to credit.
The technologies applied by urban farmers (especially so in Africa) are normally very
basic: hand labour and simple tools. Crop choices and production technologies are often not well
adapted to the conditions of the production site (e.g. intensive backyard farming requires other
technologies than roadside farming or production on riverbanks).
Projects oriented at technology development in urban agriculture are very scarce. There is
a great need for easy-to-operate and low-cost technologies for recycling of urban biological
wastes for productive use.
Lack of organisation among urban farmers
Most urban farmers are not organised in a formal way. This limits the representation of their
interests in urban policymaking and planning at the various levels and hampers their participation
in development programmes.
4. POLICY, RESEARCH, EDUCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL INITIATIVES
Some promising options for policy, research, educational and technical initiatives that can be
undertaken by city administrations, either independently or, if necessary, in collaboration with
other levels of government, in order to promote urban agriculture (UA) are:
Give UA a legal status

Accept UA as a legitimate form of urban land use. Recognise that farming is a strategy of
urban people to secure subsistence and income, and an important element of the city
economy and land-use system. Although some forms of UA are on land used only
temporarily, UA as such is a permanent feature of cities.

Make UA user rights more secure. Study present laws and practices for agricultural use of
land in the city, and revise the laws where necessary, e.g. so that current users of vacant
lots for food production can be given temporary permits. If urban farmers do not fear
eviction, they are more likely to invest in land improvement, planting trees and shrubs,
controlling erosion, etc.

Actively manage health risks of UA. Minimise potential negative health effects of UA by:
- promoting least-risk farming
- providing farmers, consumers, city administrators and health authorities with information
and education about the health effects of UA
- preventing food production on heavily polluted soils and providing alternative sites.
5

Remove unfounded legal restrictions on UA but develop protective measures to prevent
encroachment on biologically sensitive areas, use of drinking water for irrigation, or
contamination of groundwater by intensive agriculture.
Integrate UA into urban land-use planning
 Include zones and allotments for UA in city development plans.
 Promote win-win situations through:
- multiple use of space (combining recreational and ecological functions of urban green
areas with local food production),
- more efficient use of space by farming in vacant lots, school grounds, parks, rooftops,
around homes, along railway lines etc.
 Facilitate community participation in planning and management of urban open spaces
Improve access to land and water for UA
 Promote the use of under-utilised spaces by:
- identifying under-utilised spaces
- providing incentives to institutions (schools, hospitals etc.) and private owners to allow
food production on vacant or under-utilised land
- providing incentives for cleaning up vacant lots and “no-man’s land”
 Lease government land on medium-term leases to city farmers
 Require that new housing and urban construction schemes provide adequate space for
homegardens, communal gardens and commercial farms
 Define maximum rent that can be collected from agri-/horticultural allotments.
Promote safe urban production and handling of food
 Promote safe handling of wastes, and hygiene in processing and street vending of food by:
- educating urban farmers on these issues
- giving food-hygiene course to food vendors and licensing only those who take the course
- facilitating the establishment of quality control of urban-grown food (certification, in cooperation with farmers’ and consumers’ associations)
- improving cooperation between agriculture/veterinary and food-inspection services for
monitoring the quality of urban-grown food
 Promote ecological farming practices by:
- stimulating research into the role of indigenous plants in urban food systems and local
land-use strategies
- funding research for development of ecological UA: appropriate locations and crop
species/cultivar selection, least-risk farming systems, techniques for farming in confined
6
spaces (vertical farming, rooftop farming), low-cost and easy-to-operate technologies for
recycling urban biological wastes, water-conserving technologies etc.
- providing training in ecological farming
 Grant credit only to urban farmers and food processing/marketing enterprises that practise
ecological farming and observe safe-food requirements
 Inform urban farmers how to rehabilitate polluted soils
 Fund research on health risks linked with UA and on effective ways to manage these risks
 Develop and enforce environmental regulations regarding industrial pollution of urban
land and water (rivers and wastewater). Contamination of organic urban wastes and water
sources is a major (and growing) obstacle to safe urban food production. The danger is
caused not by UA itself, but by industrial pollution.
Promote recycling of urban organic waste and wastewater for agricultural use
 Develop a recovery system for organic solid waste with separation at source, preferably as
public-private initiatives
 Create small-scale composting facilities and subsidise the price of locally produced
compost (to allow competition with industrial fertilisers)
 Build or improve small-scale biological systems for decentralised treatment of urban
wastewater
 Subsidise the establishment of holding ponds for primary treatment of wastewater for use in
irrigation and for growing aquatic plants and algae that can be fed to fish and livestock
 Promote more efficient and controlled use of water (rainwater collection, drip irrigation,
use of pre-treated grey water etc.) and introduce differential pricing of water to stimulate
treatment and re-use
 Establish facilities for soil and water testing for urban farmers
 Fund research on urban organic waste and wastewater: its availability and composition,
and the actual and potential sources of contamination
Improve systems for input supply and product distribution
 Authorise informal food-selling activities and farmer markets, with safe-food handling
requirements
 Develop or upgrade infrastructure for communal and direct marketing of food (linking
urban farms with urban markets)
7
 Give financial and technical assistance to establish micro-scale neighbourhood food
preservation and storage facilities (i.e. canning, bottling, pickling, drying, smoking)
 Give technical and management assistance to up- and downstream small enterprises, i.e.
input suppliers (compost production, plant nurseries, vermiculture, local seed production,
fodder distribution), and enterprises for processing and marketing locally produced food
(cleaning, packaging, street vending, local markets, transport to other market outlets)
 Establish credit programmes for farmer cooperatives to purchase or lease transport for
direct market deliveries
 Promote consumer-producer linkages by providing incentives to community-supported
agriculture (CSA) or food-box initiatives; CSA can increase the viability of UA, as
consumers and producers share the risks of investment and eventual harvest failure (or
bounty) by purchasing a share of the production in advance.
Promote institutional development in the UA sector
 Encourage citizens’ initiatives and commercial initiatives in UA; an example is the CSA
farm established in Wageningen, Netherlands to grow fruits, vegetables and flowers
according to biodynamic principles; city dwellers buy shares in the production, and the
farmers and consumers jointly decide on crops to grow and jointly harvest them.

Facilitate the establishment and strengthening of associations of urban farmers
(producers’ organisations, marketing coops, machinery pools etc.) for more efficient
production and marketing, to allow representation of their interests in urban policymaking
and planning, and to enhance their participation in development programmes.

Facilitate networking between like-minded groups: community-based organisations
(CBOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), environmentally-conscious commercial
firms, consumer organisations, Local Agenda 21 groups.

Strengthen institutions offering essential services to the UA sector, such as credit,
agricultural advice and training, (participatory) research, and marketing services

Invest in public education about food habits, consumption of food grown on wastes,
relationship between UA, urban environmental management and “healthy cities”, etc.

Join in advocacy for UA, together with other local and national organisations as well as
international organisations such as FAO, UNDP and WHO.
Integrate UA into existing policies
8
 Integrate UA into food-security policy, to take advantage of local production, savings on
food expenditures, improved accessibility to food by urban poor, local food stalls, inner-city
markets etc.
 Integrate UA into health policy, particularly promotion of better nutrition through own
production of fruits and vegetables, as well as small livestock that provide protein; this is
often an activity of women, and helps them provide a more nutritious diet for their children.
UA can also enhance physical and mental health of urban dwellers through greater contact
with nature, recreation, physical activity and reduction in social isolation.
 Integrate UA into primary environmental care policy (“healthy cities”) to improve the
microclimate and biodiversity in the cities, to prevent erosion and flooding by planting bare
slopes, to recycle wastes, to reduce dust etc. Producing food locally and establishing local
food distribution points (community kitchens, neighbourhood markets) reduces the need for
food transport and car-based shopping trips. Also Local Agenda 21 policies and discussions of
the “ecological footprint of cities” call for local production.
 Integrate UA into waste management policy, encouraging re-use of city wastes and
substituting compost instead of agrochemicals in urban gardening. For example, the city of
Vienna has established compost plants for household organic wastes, and sells the compost
to urban gardeners or farmers or uses it in city parks.
 Integrate UA into enterprise development policy, by providing economic incentives (credit,
capital) for input-supply and product-marketing enterprises.
 Integrate UA into social development policy, as a contribution to poverty reduction, income
generation, employment creation, and gender equality.
5. GETTING INTO ACTION
There are many options for cities to promote UA but it is often difficult to do this in a wellintegrated way. We outline here an approach that involves city dwellers, local organisations,
city authorities and researchers in planning and implementing joint action.
Participatory urban appraisal. Action to promote UA can start with a participatory appraisal
of current farming activities in the city concerned, involving local stakeholders such as city
farmers, consumers, input-supply and product-marketing enterprises, local authorities,
researchers and NGOs interested in UA. As there can be considerable differences (socioeconomic, ethnic, topographical etc.) between different sections of a city, this appraisal should
be done at the neighbourhood or quarter level. Not only current but also potential farmers
should be involved, particularly poorer people who are keen to farm in the city but cannot
because of lack of access to the required resources. The participatory appraisal focuses on the
advantages and disadvantages of UA, problems, current opportunities and observed trends
which may point to potentials, existing knowledge, gaps in skills and techniques, motivations
and cultural perspectives.
9
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools are becoming increasingly popular in analysing
rural situations and planning action by numerous NGOs and more recently also by government
institutions (see PLA Notes, formerly RRA Notes, issued by the International Institute for
Environment and Development, 3 Endsleigh Street, London WC1H 0DD, UK). There are now
several examples of application of these tools also in urban settings (see Mitlin & Thompson
1994). Particularly such PRA tools as Venn (institutional) diagrams, social mapping,
livelihood analysis, resource flow diagrams, services and opportunity maps, calendars, ranking
and focus group discussions can stimulate analysis with wide participation. In urban settings,
games and jointly-constructed models have also proved to be effective in stimulating residents
to consider together what can and should be done (cf. Gibson 1994).
Identifying functions and resources. UA performs several functions in city dwellers'
livelihoods and environment. The participatory urban appraisal should help in recognising and
prioritising these functions according to the criteria of city dwellers and local authorities. This
will provide a basis for designing site-specific activities to improve UA The functions of UA
may include the following:
 nutritional: providing more balanced nutrition and thus improved health;
 economic: production and income generation through selling products or increasing
available income through saving on food expenditures;
 environmental: improved city ecology, through better water drainage, creation of favourable
microclimate, waste recycling, reduction in dust and CO2, etc.;
 aesthetic/leisure: especially in richer cities, the aspects of gardens, parks, and garden
allotments for residents without homegardens may be raised.
The relative importance of these and other functions will depend on a number of variables,
such as the economic and social situation of the neighbourhood, the availability and location of
land (e.g. in the backyard or further from the house), the preferred production sectors
(horticulture, crop husbandry, animal husbandry, aquaculture), and the priorities of the local
authorities. The relative importance of these functions will also differ between quarters within
one and the same city.
Besides the knowledge and labour energy of the city dwellers, the main urban resources used
for agriculture are water, nutrients (especially from waste) and land. In many situations, there
will be a shortage of one or more of these resources. These relative shortages will likewise
differ between city quarters. It is important to identify the limitations within which each
neighbourhood operates and how these can be overcome. The (potential) farmers must be
involved in making a realistic assessment of the possibilities. Creative solutions will be needed
to deal with these shortages, and it is often the enterprising people already practising UA who
can show the way.
Stakeholder workshops. The results of participatory appraisals in different neighbourhoods
are brought together and discussed at one or more stakeholder workshops. Here, actions to be
taken at city and neighbourhood level are jointly identified in the realms of:
10
 policy development: creating a policy environment which enables UA to flourish and
ensures that poorer urban dwellers have fair access to the required resources;
 research and development in both production and organisation: close collaboration with
the farmers themselves in identifying, testing and adapting not only technology options for
production but also organisational options such as the allocation of temporary resource-use
rights for specific purposes, e.g. non-built-up land for cultivation, or roadside trees for
harvest (also for animal feed);
 institutional development: supporting the development or strengthening of neighbourhoodlevel institutions which can interact with higher levels of organisation in promoting and
implementing UA.
All stakeholders should be represented when a programme for action in UA development is
designed. The needs and responsibilities of the city government must be confronted with the
needs and responsibilities of the urban dwellers, and agreements have to be negotiated.
Stakeholder workshops provide a good opportunity for negotiations on an equal footing
and for the formation of coalitions, particularly for:
 lobbying aimed at improved urban planning and imaginative development of government
policies which favour the opportunities, remove the constraints, and minimise the problems
faced and created by urban farmers;
 participatory action research, involving farmers, scientists, extensionists, artisans and other
input suppliers, in order to develop appropriate technologies for the specific conditions for
UA in that city or neighbourhood (cf. Reijntjes et al. 1992, van der Bliek & van Veldhuizen
1993, van Veldhuizen et al. 1997).
Participatory monitoring. Support needs to be given to immediate implementation of the
activities identified during the process of participatory appraisal and planning. Initially, it may
be possible to support action only in selected neighbourhoods. This needs to be accompanied
by participatory monitoring and evaluation of the activities. Only in this way can lessons be
learned for improving and expanding the programme of UA development.
It will not be sufficient to establish a programme for UA development based on only
one round of analysis and planning. Some institution is needed to continue the process of
monitoring changes and impacts, and redesigning the programme accordingly. This institution,
which could take the form of a "city farming committee" or a "neighbourhood farming
committee" involving representatives of stakeholders at all levels, would also provide a
platform for re-negotiation of rights and responsibilities. This will be necessary as the face of
the city and, thus, of UA changes over time.
6. DUTCH EXAMPLE OF JOINT POLICY ON URBAN LANDSCAPES
The Dutch case offers a good example of how national and provincial governments,
waterbodies and nature organisations jointly drew up a policy discussion paper on urban
11
landscapes and UA and prepared an action plan. The Ministries of LNV (Agriculture, Nature
and Fisheries) and VROM (Housing, Spatial Planning and Social Development), in
collaboration with “green funds” and public organisation (waterbodies, ANWB
__________________, nature organisations), have developed an interesting and well-received
policy discussion paper on urban landscapes. This concludes that, for further development of
UA, it is necessary:
 for national or regional governments to further develop policy guidelines in which city
councils can find ideas and options
 that each local government develop its own vision on the potential functions of agriculture
in their landscape
 to do more research especially on the economic potential of UA and the “emotional
appreciation” citizens give to Nature in their city (which can be then translated into a
political message)
 to link producers and consumers and link producers and commercial organisations (for
waste recycling, marketing of urban grown food, etc.), so as to link supply and demand and
to assure the economic viability of UA
 to create funding opportunities. LNV and VROM have opened specific funds for a) rural
renovation (revitalisation) of which UA can well be part; and b) innovative urban
development. In both cases, either farmers or city councils can apply for funding to test
innovative “urban landscape” practices.
References
Alders C, van der Bliek J & Waters-Bayer A (eds). 1994. Farming at close quarters. ILEIA
Newsletter, Volume 10, No. 4.
Dahlberg __. 1997. ________.
Gibson T. 1994. Showing what you mean (not just talking about it). RRA Notes 21: 41-47.
Leitmann J. 1994. Rapid urban environmental assessment: lessons from cities in the
developing world. 2 volumes. Washington DC: World Bank Urban Management
Programme.
Lunven _. 1992. ____________
Mitlin D & Thompson J. 1994. Special Issue on Participatory Tools and Methods. RRA Notes
21. London: IIED Sustainable Agriculture Programme/Human Settlements Programme.
Reijntjes C, Haverkort B & Waters-Bayer A. 1992. Farming for the future: an introduction to
low-external-input and sustainable agriculture. London: Macmillan.
Smit __. 1996. ______.
Smit __ et al. 1995. _____.
12
USDA. 1992. ______
van der Bliek J & van Veldhuizen L. 1993. Developing tools together: report of a study on the
role of participation in the development of tools, equipment and techniques in
appropriate technology programmes. Leusden: ETC Foundation.
van Veldhuizen L, Waters-Bayer A & de Zeeuw H. 1997. Developing technology with
farmers: a trainer’s guide for participatory learning. London: ZED Books.