Urban Agriculture - Benefits

Benefits

The benefits that UPA brings along to cities that implement this practice are numerous. The transformation of cities from only consumers of food to generators of agricultural products contributes to sustainability, improved health, and poverty alleviation.

• UPA assists to close the open loop system in urban areas characterized by the importation of food from rural zones and the exportation of waste to regions outside the city or town.
• Wastewater and organic solid waste can be transformed into resources for growing agriculture products: the former can be used for irrigation, the latter as fertilizer.
• Vacant urban areas can be used for agriculture production.
• Other natural resources can be conserved. The use of wastewater for irrigation improves water management and increases the availability of freshwater for drinking and household consumption.
• UPA can help to preserve bioregional ecologies from being transformed into cropland.
• Urban agriculture saves energy (e.g. energy consumed in transporting food from rural to urban areas).
• Local production of food also allows savings in transportation costs, storage, and in product loss, what results in food cost reduction.
• UPA improves the quality of the urban environment through greening and thus, a reduction in pollution.
• Urban agriculture also makes of the city a healthier place to live by improving the quality of the environment.
• UPA is a very efficient tool to fight against hunger and malnutrition since it facilitates the access to food by an impoverished sector of the urban population.

Poverty alleviation: It is known that a large part of the people involved in urban agriculture is the urban poor. In developing countries, the majority of urban agricultural production is for self-consumption, with surpluses being sold in the market. According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), urban poor consumers spend between 60 and 80 percent of their income on food, making them very vulnerable to higher food prices.

• UPA provides food and creates savings in household expenditure on consumables, thus increasing the amount of income allocated to other uses.
• UPA surpluses can be sold in local markets, generating more income for the urban poor.

Community centers and gardens educate the community to see agriculture as an integral part of urban life. The Florida House Institute for Sustainable Development in Sarasota, Florida, serves as a public community and education center in which innovators with sustainable, energy-saving ideas can implement and test them. Community centers like Florida House provide urban areas with a central location to learn about urban agriculture and to begin to integrate agriculture with the urban lifestyle.

Other examples of community centers are Greensgrow Farm in Philadelphia and Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane, Australia. Greensgrow uses an abandoned site as an urban farm to teach the community how food is grown and how to grow their own food. Northey Street City Farm hosts weekly community activities to educate and involve local residents in agricultural practices.

Urban farms also are a proven effective educational tool to teach kids about healthy eating and meaningful physical activity. An example of educational urban agriculture is Full Circle Farm, an 11-acre (45,000 m2) farm located on a middle school campus in the heart of Silicon Valley. Like other educational agriculture centers, Full Circle Farm's acreage is used as a "living campus" where students get real-world, hands-on agriculture experiences that cultivate both healthy habits and environmental leadership.