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Urbanag in Brief

Nature of the business

Urbanag is a social enterprise registered as a Community Interest Company.

Our mission is to promote the aims and objectives of urban agriculture (UA) within the United Kingdom as a mainstream contributor to the food supply. We are launching this effort in the North West of England.

We believe that the coordination and spread of urban agriculture schemes can address a number of critical issues for contemporary society in developed economies. Among them are: food security, economic and social development, climate change mitigation, and diet and health.

While urban agriculture schemes proliferate, there is a general lack of strategic direction to these schemes that would enhance their sustainability and benefits.

While volunteering and project funding are critical to the launch stage of any urban agriculture scheme, without addressing the issues of job creation and revenue generation, such schemes are likely to fail.

Urbanag sees its role as promoting structures and strategies to assist the processes of job creation and revenue generation through developing organisational capacity, partnerships and alliances among food producers and between producers and the market.

We will act as consultants, project managers and capacity builders, promoting sustainable and economically viable urgan agriculture projects.

Market trends

OnionThe United Nations Development Programme estimated in 1996 that 15% to 20% of the food produced in the world is produced by some 800 million urban and peri-urban farmers and gardeners (peri-urban = peripheral to cities).

In some parts of the world, growth in the sector appears remarkably strong. In China, for example, urban agriculture output grew 26% by value between 1998 and 2002 – that is more than 6% per year (source: The International Development Research Centre).

Most of the growth is in the developing world, where UA is often seen as an important element of development strategy. In the developed world, priorities may be different – food security, food quality, food miles and climate change, for example. But poverty is not just an issue for the developing world. If urban agriculture can help to address poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it can do the same thing for the disadvantaged communities within the richer countries of the world. And it seems to be spreading across the globe.

Activity is difficult to gauge, but we know of major projects in Amsterdam, Detroit, Vancouver and Cleveland, alongside the – possibly better-known – projects in Kampala, Harare, Dar-es-Salam, Shanghai, Hanoi, Quito, or Cienfuegos. Smaller projects are doing well in London, Huddersfield and Todmorden in Lancashire. Anecdotal evidence suggests a significant growth in grass roots activity (no pun intended) in major urban centres in developed countries, with substantial increases in allotment and garden-based vegetable cultivation. These are traditionally popular activities in the UK, and probably the most significant forms of urban agriculture in the country at present. However, there are signs that the trend is towards an increased proportion of allotment and garden space being turned over to vegetable and other food production.

The US situation may be indicative:

“According to the 2009 Edibles Gardening Trends Research Report conducted by the Garden Writers Association Foundation (GWAF) in November, more than 41 million U.S. households (38%) grew a vegetable garden in 2009. More than 19.5 million households (18%) grew an herb garden and 16.5 million households (15%) grew fruits during the same period.

“Did Edibles Gardening Grow in 2009?

There was definitely a growth in edibles gardening in 2009 from both experienced gardeners and an influx of new gardeners. Among those that grew edibles gardens this year, 92% had previous experience and 7% (7.7 million households) were new to edibles gardening. One-third of the experienced gardeners reported growing more edibles in 2009 than in the previous year, while 46% reported they grew about the same as 2008, and 19% grew less than the previous year.

“Will Edibles Gardening Continue to Expand in 2010?

When asked if they planned to continue their garden for 2010, 37% of households reported plans to increase their edible gardens, 29% reported they planned to plant about the same as 2009 and only 1% reported they would plant less than this year. Although a significant number (15%) remained undecided regarding their 2010 plans, the strong response for growing more edibles next year should carry the market to a new level of activity.

“The main reason given for increasing or maintaining edible gardening for next year was to supplement household food supply. The most common reasons given for planting less next year were: lack of success in 2009 (14%), cost (13%), loss of interest (8%) and time involved (4%).The key problem is lack of info but also lack of coordination.” Garden Center Magazine, 11 February 2010.

The UK-based Horticultural Trades Association suggests that the market for small-scale urban agriculture produce may be growing in the developed world because of “the appetite for local, simple and authentic products, a distaste for waste, a growing interest in green issues and a return to homes and gardens, friends and family.”

While Defra’s Food 2030 strategy document broadly ignores urban agriculture, it is our view that concern for food security, food quality and the impact of food consumption on climate change, plus pressure from consumers, growers and local development agencies will filter through to national government sooner rather than later. Projects at sub-regional and regional levels have a key role to play; without them, we are left with a mass of individual actions, lacking any coordination and strength.

[Some documents worth consulting are Defra's UK Food Security strategy document and its Food 2030 strategy document. In the North West, RS2010 Regional Strategy for England's North West and Rising to the Challenge: a Climate Change Action Plan for England’s Northwest 2010-2012 (NWDA) are particularly relevant to the region.]

Risk factors

There are a number of risk factors for any organisation wishing to engage with and promote urban agriculture. The most significant are associated with the problems surrounding urban agriculture itself.

  • Almost all the examples of urban agriculture schemes we currently have are small scale. This sort of production is likely to dominate for the foreseeable future, despite many opportunities for larger scale operations involving ‘vertical farm’ development, rooftop gardens and the organised cultivation of waste land, ribbon verges along roads, railways, and canal paths.
  • Allotment production has strengths – members have land tenure, which by common consent is more important than ownership; allotments are popular; and they are recognised  within the current regulatory framework. Even though allotments are neglected by some authorities, the allotment movement remains one of the likeliest avenues to open up land for urban agriculture projects.
  • If small scale growers remain the norm, coordination will be essential to sustainability and the marketing of any surplus produce. Allotments are orientated toward individuals (although there are now some examples of community plots) and are accordingly not generally supported by distribution infrastructures, while local byelaws may prohibit sales.
  • To create an allotment/garden based urban agriculture project may demand changes to local culture and byelaws. It will certainly require investment in information and communications technology and vertical coordination (growers, distributors and outlets) as well as the horizontal coordination of growers themselves, distributors and outlets. Coordination, and cultural and statutory changes may prove to be difficult to achieve.
  • A reliable supply of labour for growing and collection is also critical to sustainability – volunteer activity is inherently unreliable, and it must be a central aim of any urban agriculture project to create adequately remunerated jobs. But the image and inheritance of agricultural labour works against this in a developed country such as the UK. An enormous effort will be required to refresh the image of agriculture as a rewarding form of employment. Facilitating the productivity of labour is a question of training, and a sustainable scheme cannot be separated from a viable training strategy.
  • Land may be unproductive. In urban areas, where pollution often degrades the soil, this is quite likely. There are, of course, other options for urban agriculture, but the possibility of unproductive land requires us to do our research with some rigour.

Team

Gary Herman: Gary Herman is a journalist and website developer, with substantial experience in research and report writing. He is the author, co-author or editor of nine books, and has produced four 70,000-word market reports for Financial Times Business Publications (now Informa) and many other reports and consultancy documents for clients such as Datapro, the National Computing Centre, IBM (UK) Banking, Tate, Sun-Alliance Insurance, BP Europe, the European Commission, and Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive.

John Smith: John Smith is a qualified environmental manager with extensive project management experience both in the UK and internationally. He is currently developing food security and urban agriculture programmes in the North West working in particular with disadvantaged communities.

This core will be augmented by a number of associates.