Urban agriculture of the future: an overview of sustainability aspects of food production in and on buildings

Specht, Kathrin; Siebert, Rosemarie; Hartmann, Ina; Freisinger, Ulf B.; Sawicka, Magdalena; Werner, A.; Thomaier, Susanne; Henckel, Dietrich; Walk, Heike; Dierich, Axel

doi:10.1007/s10460-013-9448-4

Cited by 486 publications

(446 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The defining aspect is their location on roofs, typically in urban areas. Consequently they belong to zero acreage farming (Specht et al 2014).…”

Section: Ua and Pua Formsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gibson 2005;Lovell 2010;Ackerman et al 2014), in public parks (Buttery et al 2008), on rooftops (e.g. Astee and Kishnani 2010;Ackerman et al 2014), in backyard gardens (Blake and Cloutier-Fisher 2009) or indoors (Specht et al 2014). Previous land uses were often related to industry and to infrastructure (Deelstra and Girardet 2001), housing (Schmelzkopf 1995), or recreation.…”

Section: Land Use Categorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A further innovative strategy in UA in dealing with the urban conditions is agriculture in and on buildings, where new spaces for food production are created (Besthorn 2013;Specht et al 2014). Using vacant buildings or suitable rooftops, food is grown in spaces that are not typically designed for agricultural production.…”

Section: Spatial Adaptation Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At a city level, the amount of land that could potentially be used for agriculture can be increased enormously with this approach (Buttery et al 2008;Rodriguez 2009;Engelhard 2010;Ackerman 2011). While the number of rooftop farms is rising around the world, the vision of vertical farms, highrise buildings with various farming activities inside and on the roof or façade (Despommier 2010), has so far not been implemented (Specht et al 2014).…”

Section: Spatial Adaptation Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A more fundamental form is the use of hydroponic or aquaponic techniques (Nelkin and Caplow 2007;Specht et al 2014). Here, vegetables (for example) are grown in greenhouses in a nutrient solution.…”

Section: Soil Usementioning

confidence: 99%

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Contributing to food security in urban areas: differences between urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North

et al. 2015

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Food security is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in the Global North, especially in urban areas. Because such areas do not always have good access to nutritionally adequate food, the question of how to supply them is an urgent priority in order to maintain a healthy population. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as sources of local fresh food, could play an important role. Whereas some scholars do not differentiate between peri-urban and urban agriculture, seeing them as a single entity, our hypothesis is that they are distinct, and that this has important consequences for food security and other issues. This has knock-on effects for food system planning and has not yet been appropriately analysed. The objectives of this study are to provide a systematic understanding of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North, showing their similarities and differences, and to analyse their impact on urban food security. To this end, an extensive literature review was conducted, resulting in the identification and comparison of their spatial, ecological and socio-economic characteristics. The findings are discussed in terms of their impact on food security in relation to the four levels of the food system: food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The results show that urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North indeed differ in most of their characteristics and consequently also in their ability to meet the food needs of urban inhabitants. While urban agriculture still meets food needs mainly at the household level, peri-urban agriculture can provide larger quantities and has broader distribution pathways, giving it a separate status in terms of food security. Nevertheless, both possess (unused) potential, making them valuable for urban food planning, and both face similar threats regarding urbanisation pressures, necessitating adequate planning measures.

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“…The defining aspect is their location on roofs, typically in urban areas. Consequently they belong to zero acreage farming (Specht et al 2014).…”

Section: Ua and Pua Formsmentioning

confidence: 99%