Large Scale Urban Agriculture - Page 3

We can imagine urban farming in a variety of scales, starting with a few consumable plants in the window sill to large scale vertical farming industries. It is useful to divide these different types in three scales, since they require different approaches to effectuate.

Small scale urban farming is not uncommon in large parts of the world. Typical of the small scale is that the food is produced by the same people that consume it. In many communities people enjoy growing certain herbs or spices in their own domain to guarantee freshness or a flavor they cannot obtain otherwise. Sometimes a hobby in food gardening can extend itself to the cultivation of an allotment garden, not uncommon in the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden. These provide important community functions as well as educational and leisure services to a wide range of age groups. However, their food production is limited and inefficient due to a high degree of fragmentation and it can not be expected for a small roof gardens to be a major contribution to actual agricultural land. Its benefits should mainly be sought in its sociological and ecological benefits, such as water collection, waste recycling and educational purposes.

Medium scale urban farming is usually
an enterprise organized by a single entity in which members of the community it feeds are employed, either paid or voluntarily, to provide food for this community. They often focus on a certain environmental approach to food production that normal channels do not provide or only at a high premium such as organic and specialty crops. Usually the grounds are in the vicinity of the organization benefiting from them. A good example of medium scale urban farming are university food gardens, providing some or all of the food for a number of residential colleges or dining halls. The gardens are usually run and maintained by the university, with students from the community assisting where members of the community work to grow the food. Medium scale urban farming is a good way to use smaller fragmented areas of urban fabric for food production as well as providing

a visually, culturally and socially stimulating space, while aiding biodiversity, urban heat island effects and providing for functionally active open spaces. It is interesting to note that traditional Chinese gardens, admired around the world for their quality and sophistication, were food gardens for the most part. Also Cuba has employed medium scale urban farming to overcome the hardships it faced after the soviet block fell and the economic boycott of the United States put the economy under pressure and increased the prices of oil significantly. Cuba reverted to the use of oxen and manpower for its agricultural needs in favor of tractors and machinery, and converted open areas in and around cities to small farming enterprises, an advantage in relation to the rest of the world, because of its increasing independence from oil. With the rising

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