World Ark Magazine - January/February 2008 - (Page 32) industrial countries might be able to compensate for traffic congestion and lack of local food with superior transportation and packaging, those in developing countries could not. Urban farming was posed to take off again. In fact, farming is ubiquitous in cities today. The U.N. Development Programme estimates that 800 million people are involved in urban farming worldwide, with the majority in Asian cities. Of these, 200 million produce food primarily for the market, but the great majority raise food for their own families. In a survey conducted for the United Nations, cities worldwide already produce about one third of the food consumed by their residents on average, a percentage that will likely grow in coming decades given that the need for urban agriculture could be greater now than ever before. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the number of hungry people living in cities is growing. While malnutrition in rural areas is still a bigger problem in terms of actual numbers of people—of the 852 million people worldwide who are undernourished, 75 percent live in rural areas—urban residents, particularly children, also suffer from food shortages as well as micronutrient deficiencies. Urban agriculture can be one of the most important factors in improving childhood nutrition by In 2001, FAO off icials were increasing both access to food and concerned about the capacity of large nutritional quality. Recent studies in cities in Asia, Latin America and Africa the Philippines and elsewhere confirm to feed themselves. They found that by this linkage between better childhood 2010 many of these cities will require nutrition and the production of food massive increases in the number of in urban areas. truckloads of food coming into the Fortunately, urban politicians, area each year—increases that would businesses and planners are begin- overwhelm the capacity of these cities ning to regard urban agriculture as to distribute food. Bangkok will need a tool to help cities cope with a range 104,000 additional 10-ton truckloads of ecological, social and nutritional each year, Jakarta will need 205,000, challenges—from sprawl to malnutri- Karachi 217,000, Beijing nearly 303,000, tion to swelling landfills and the threat and Shanghai just under 360,000. And of attacks on the food chain. In this while cities may never be able to meet all context, taking advantage of land their food needs from local farmland, in and around cities is essential and the tremendous infrastructure, energy obvious. Unlike parks or other green and cost required to shuttle food into space, which are generally fi nanced densely populated areas argues for by taxpayers, urban farming can be urban centers to secure as much of a functioning business that pays for their food as possible from farmland itself. And for cities that use nearby within their borders or nearby. farmland to filter wastewater, recycle People living in cities demand more garbage and cool down the concrete food and a greater range of foods than jungle, farming is rapidly becoming their rural counterparts, but they something they can’t do without. live farther from the centers of food production. In response, people often REPLENISHING FOOD DESERTS start farming in the city simply because Local food takes on a very different they cannot fi nd an affordable and meaning on a planet where half the reliable source of the foods they crave people live in cities. As a greater share from their rural roots or because they of the world’s population resides farther might not have the cash to buy food from where food is grown, produce has at all. As opposed to in the countryto be moved across countries and some- side, in cities a lack of money translates times around the world. more directly into lack of food. Number of cities with at least 1 million inhabitants, 1800 Number of cities with at least 1 million inhabitants, 1900 (1) (12) www.heifer.org 32 January/February 2008 | WORLD ARK http://www.heifer.org
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