Aditya Madyantara

Professor Annie Knepler

UNST 109G-001
May 25, 2015
Growing a Green Future
In todays world we have really limited space to make community garden in a city. Healthy fresh
food seems really expensive and hard to get. However, millions of people world-wide are
dependent on crops and animals raised in cities. We are very fortunate that the idea of urban
agriculture is becoming a new trend, many cities around the world have begun to foster a range
of experiments in urban agriculture. In 1996, United Nations report estimates that up to 80% of
families in some Asian cities are involved in agriculture (Brown & Jameton, 2000).
What is urban agriculture? Urban agriculture is basically using and alternative land or space for
integrating multiple functions in densely populated areas. Concerns about economic and food
security have resulted a growing movement to produce food in cities. Urban agriculture can
includes community and private gardens, edible landscaping, fruit trees, food-producing green
roofs, aquaculture, farmers markets, small-scale farming, hobby beekeeping, and last but not
least food composting (Mendes, Balmer, Kaethler, & Rhoads, 2008). It might seems small, but it
will makes environmentally and socially sustainable community. It will brings us a lot of benefits
such as food that travels shorter distance from field to plate, improve urban biodiversity,
preservation of cultivable land, food security, and the most important thing is improve health and
nutrition. By doing urban agriculture, we can improve access to fresh and nutritious food and it
will helps to fight childhood obesity, diabetes, and poor nutrition that is still happening in many
neighborhoods in America. In other cases, social benefits of urban agriculture is improving
interracial relationships and decreasing crime rates. It benefits the community from the creation
of new jobs for residents who struggle to find work. Much of the food is sold through local
markets, providing income for individual residents and economic vitality for the community
(Lovell).
For ecological and environmental benefits, urban agriculture helps the production functions. If
we started producing food locally and balancing production and consumption, we can save the
energy to feed the cities because of lower transportation distance, less packaging and processing,
and better efficiency in production process. By reducing the energy we can decrease greenhouse
emissions and global warming. Energy is also conserved by reusing urban waste products locally,
both biodegradable waste for compost and waste water (storm water or grey water) for irrigation
(Lovell, 2010).
Portland is one of the city in America that has been on the forefront of sustainability and its
commitment to it. Portland was the first city in the U.S. that adopt a strategy to reduce emissions
of carbon dioxide in 1993 and the first municipalities in North America to make sustainability as
a priority (Mendes, Balmer, Kaethler, & Rhoads, 2008). Businesses like restaurants also started
to buy local products like meat, cheese, fruits, and vegetables from local farmers. So far,

Portland has 32 separate farmers markets, 20 community-supported agriculture, and 30

community gardens that are maintained by churches, community groups, and suburban
communities.
Urban agriculture not only evolve in the U.S. but also across the globe such as Africa, Latin
America, and Southeast Asia. In these particular countries, urban agriculture is focusing to
improve the poor area by providing food for consumption, reducing food costs, diversifying
activities for producing income, and empowering women. Urban agriculture also one of the best
strategy to respond a crisis. For example, the crisis that happened in Havana, Cuba. After Soviet
Union collapsed, Havana suffered loss of earnings from their exports as well as their imports.
From 1997 to 2003, Havana has experienced an average of 38% growth in urban agriculture and
the result is the increase in the vegetables production. In Beijing, urban agriculture also become a
new trend and the result is organic diversified farms and extensive greenhouses have emerged
throughout the city.
To maintain our sustainability, we need to consider the balance of our needs and protect our
natural resources and environment. Our ecological system is greatly impacted by the food system
including energy inputs, production, transportation distances, and management of waste
products. Urban agriculture has a greater role to improve all of those things and the main focuses
are to create greener, healthier, and more self-sufficient city. Last, urban agriculture is a tool that
contributes to create sustainable urban environment.
Work Cited
H. Brown, Kate, and Andrew L. Jameton. Public Health Implications of Urban Agriculture.
Journal of Public Health Policy at JSTOR. Palgrave Macmillan Journals, 2000. Web. 12 May
2015.
Lovell, Sarah Taylor. Multifunctional Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Land Use Planning in
the United States. University of Illinois and Journal Sustainability at MDPI, 4 Aug. 2010. Web.
12 May 2015.
Mendes, Wendy, Kevin Balmer, Terra Kaethler, Amanda Rhoads. Using Land Inventories to
Plan for Urban Agriculture: Experiences from Portland and Vancouver. Journal of the American
Planning Association. Taylor & Francis, 2008. Print.