More consistent policy support needed for urban agriculture to flourish

Sustainable food supply has become one of the most pressing issues of the age¹. Major contemporary food systems not only contribute significantly to GH gas emissions, but adversely impact biodiversity, water and soil quality. The problem is compounded by the increasing shift to living in cities, with over half the world’s population now residing in urban areas. This is putting pressure on food supply chains, often making conventional production from rural areas inadequate and leading to overreliance on unsustainable global markets².

The EU’s rural development policy for 2014–2020 encouraged European producers to become involved in short food supply chains – committed to cooperation, local economic development and establishing close geographical and social relations between producers, processors and consumers.

This study suggests that a possible solution to the increasing metropolitan demand for food is to grow produce in urban environments and distribute it locally. Urban agriculture, which can take a number of different forms, has been steadily growing in the last few decades. Such practices are associated with a range of benefits including strengthening local economies, increasing social cohesion and supporting ecosystem services such as pollination and climate change mitigation.

At EU level, urban agriculture does not directly benefit from the support of the Common Agricultural Policy,  but organic farming principles defined in the EU regulation on organic production and specific technologies can be used to grow produce in cities. It also interplays with the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy, which aims to accelerate our transition to a sustainable food system. There are also examples of policymaking at national and city-level, and an acknowledgement of the growing importance of governing such food systems³, but to date, little insight into the effectiveness of such policies.

To address knowledge gaps around local policies, researchers analysed the measures taken in four European cities – Barcelona, Lyon, Trieste and Udine – to encourage and regulate three types of urban agriculture: allotment gardens, community gardens and controlled environment agriculture (CEA). The latter includes systems such as vertical farms and rooftop greenhouses, which can work to minimise risks associated with growing fresh produce – including contamination from micro-pollutants – and tend to be more commercially orientated. The academics refined their focus by looking at vegetable growing (with animal husbandry not included within the scope of the study, due it being rarely practised in urban areas, or those areas adjacent to cities, within the EU).

Focused on the four case-study cities, the researchers carried out a literature review and online stakeholder survey to assess the effectiveness and social acceptability of policies.

They found a number of different tools were used in the municipalities, from direct government support and contract agreements to providing technology and expertise. In particular, interviews underlined the fact that economic incentives remain an essential form of support, with 70% of respondents mentioning such policies as those needed the most, in comparison to 45% mentioning legal and regulatory policies and 30% voluntary incentives. Of the cities studied, only Lyon was considered to be providing sufficient economic backing to sustain urban agriculture projects.

More generally, they observed that policymaking was fragmented, falling under land use, social development and food production policy areas, and that support for the different types of urban agriculture is uneven. While allotment gardens are generally well-supported by policies in the cities studied, they found policy tends to limit the development of community gardens and CEA. More generally, local land-use policies do not tend to favour urban agriculture initiatives, and in Barcelona and Lyon, the two largest cities in the study, urban agriculture is excluded from plans when new land becomes available.  

Considering the unevenness of support and an observation that decisions about local growing are made outside dedicated frameworks, the researchers recommended that more inclusive plans should be designed for larger-scale growing initiatives. This could be aided by institutionally recognising urban agriculture in political agendas, they said, while making it a separate land-use category would prioritise growing schemes as a legitimate use of urban space.

A combination of the ‘bottom-up’ policy initiatives designed by municipalities, coupled with a ‘top-down’ governance scheme at EU level could help achieve this necessary institutional recognition, they concluded, with a harmonised policy scheme having the potential to help local administrators adopt policies based on their different municipal needs and policy-making capabilities.

Footnotes:

1. B´en´e, C., Oosterveer, P., Lamotte, L., Brouwer, I.D., de Haan, S., Prager, S.D., Talsma, E. F., Khoury, C.K. (2019). When food systems meet sustainability – Current narratives and implications for actions. World Dev, 113: 116–130.
2. Bricas, N., Barles, S., Billen, G. and Routhier, J.-L. (2019) Urbanization issues affecting food system sustainability Designing Urban Food Policies: Concepts and Approaches, Urban Agriculture, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 1–25. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13958-2_1 [Accessed 17 July 2023].
3. Filippini, R., Mazzocchi, C., and Corsi, S. (2019) The contribution of Urban Food Policies toward food security in developing and developed countries: A network analysis approach. Sustainable Cities and Society, 47: 101506.

Source:

Marini, M., Caro, D. and Thomsen, M. (2023) Investigating local policy instruments for different types of urban agriculture in four European cities: A case study analysis on the use and effectiveness of the applied policy instruments. Land Use Policy, 131: 106695. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106695 [Accessed 17 July 2023].    

To cite this article/service:

“Science for Environment Policy”: European Commission DG Environment News Alert Service, edited by the Science Communication Unit, The University of the West of England, Bristol.

Notes on content:

The contents and views included in Science for Environment Policy are based on independent, peer reviewed research and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Commission. Please note that this article is a summary of only one study. Other studies may come to other conclusions.