Urban Gardening and Agriculture

With half the world's population now living in urban areas and most of the world's best cropland already under cultivation, urban gardening and agriculture is rapidly becoming an important source of food for city dwellers. Researcher Margarida Correia notes, “urban agriculture marks a return to early cities, where food production was part and parcel of daily life.”

Urban agriculture has the following general characteristics: It is located within or on the fringe of a town, city, or metropolis; grows, raises, processes, and distributes a diversity of food and non-food products; uses and reuses human and natural resources, products, and services largely found in and around that urban area; and in turn, supplies human and material resources, products, and services largely to that urban area. However, urban ...