Challenges of urban garden initiatives for food security in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

Sustainable urban farming is a strategy to improve food availability and food access, and to support food security for the urban population in Malaysia. However, the development of these activities has been affected by several constraints. This article aims to identify the challenges faced by urban farmers in Kuala Lumpur. The challenges of practicing urban gardening were categorised into five groups (technical, resource-related, economic, social and environmental factors). Data were collected via a questionnaire survey distributed to 106 urban farming practitioners from 17 urban gardens in Kuala Lumpur and were analysed using descriptive analysis by tabulating the frequency and percentage. The result showed that highly fluctuating weather, problems with access to available land and financial problems were the main challenges faced by urban farmers in Kuala Lumpur. Furthermore, difficulty in access to a financial institution, lack of commitment and the increased number of pests were also the problems faced by the urban garden. Availability of technical factors is the least issue in this study. Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between the challenges of urban gardens and socio-demographics. The result showed that there was a weak correlation between technical factors of educational level (r = 0.225) and race (r = 0.210), respectively, as well as between race and social factor (r = 0.201), while there was a moderate correlation between age and environment factor (r = −0.410). There is a need for further work, and comprehensive research should be conducted to capture what actions can be taken to create a policy-making space for urban farmers.

Knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of farmers towards urban agroecology in Malaysia

“…1 ). The lower percentage of female farmers, which is consistent with previous reports [ [50] , [51] , [52] , [53] ], could be due to a lack of opportunities to participate in cooperative organisations, and policies that tend to overlook them [ 54 ]. The lack of opportunities among females may also contribute to the differences in knowledge on agroecology between males and females ( Table 1 ).…”

Urban Farming Prototype Design and Development with IoT System using STEMSEL and Runlinc IDE

“…The vegetables were grown in a confined space that provided a conducive environment for plant growth. HAVVA Agrotech Sdn Bhd is another company based in Penang that fully utilised and optimised space to grow vegetables two times faster [14]. HAVVA Agrotech, shown in Figure 3, integrated hydroponic, aquaculture, vertical farming, fermionic and aeroponic into a single, effective and efficient urban farming technology.…”

“…3. HAVVA Agrotech [14] Research has also shown that, despite its popularity, farmers still face challenges in urban framing, such as weather conditions, land availability, and financial issues [15,16]. Certain urban areas are vulnerable to weather changes.…”

Urbānās lauksaimniecības koncepts, potenciāls un attīstības perspektīvas Latvijā = The concept, potential and development perspectives of urban agriculture in Latvia

“…Periodā no 2013.-2019.gadam, kas ir CSP publicētais periods par valstspilsētām, Rīga vidēji veido 54.14% Zemes resursu cenas ir viens no faktoriem ar vislielāko negatīvo ietekmi urbānās lauksaimniecības attīstībai. Tas ir izaicinājums globālās prakses pieredzē, un tiek izmantots kā ietekmējošais faktors arī citos urbānās lauksaimniecības pētījumos(Asl, Azadgar, 2022;Ishak et al, 2022). Pēc VZD kadastrālo vērtību bāzes datiem (Kadastrālo vērtību bāze, 2020) pilsētas teritoriju zemei, uz kuras galvenā saimnieciskā darbība ir lauksaimniecība, augstākā vērtība ir Rīgā (1 EUR m -2 ), salīdzinoši zemāka pārējās valstspilsētās, bet novados vidējā vērtība ir 0.09 EUR m -2 , ar modu 0.07 EUR m -2 (skat.…”