The Farm in the city-
✓Planning for urban agriculture can make cities sustainable, achieve food security
● Repercussions of climate change:
✓PREMATURE summer: The soaring temperatures adversely affect health, cause a dip in agricultural production, and also dry up rivers.
✓Cities are facing the heat largely on account of ill-conceived urbanization:
✓The urban heat island effect.
✓India is rapidly urbanising and is estimated to host 50 percent of its population in cities by 2050.
✓Our cities already suffer from a number of issues:
✓High population density.
✓Unaffordable housing,
✓Improper waste disposal,
✓Water scarcity most of the year.
✓Flooding during the rains,
✓Pollution and attendant illnesses.
✓Food and nutritional insecurity and
✓Urban poverty, among others.
✓Opportune moment : To engage with urban land-use planning (ULP), especially urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA), as one of the essential elements of sustainable urbanisation.
● Role of green infrastructure (GI):
✓Combating pollution
✓Climate mitigation and adaptation
✓Health and recreational benefits.
✓The Centre’s 2015 AMRUT programme: included green spaces and parks as a thrust area.
● What is left out in urban planning?
✓Agriculture – still seen as a predominantly rural practice.
✓Food and Agricultural Organisation’s(FAO): recognises
Urban Agriculture as a significant contributor to:
✓Food security
✓Livelihood generation
✓Poverty alleviation
✓Urban resilience and sustainability.
✓Urban areas already house at least 55 per cent of the world’s population and consume 80 per cent of the food produced globally.
✓It underlined UPA as key to achieving sustainable food systems.
