Urban Farming Movement

Abstract

The expression “urban agriculture” refers to the emergence in many cities of areas cultivated by farmers who distribute the fruits of the land they work in the environs of the zone of production. The movement, born in response to a range of real needs, has become a global phenomenon, and has taken on an organized form in a large number of cities: from Mumbai to Beijing, London, New York, Detroit, São Paulo, Rosario, Vancouver, Tokyo, San Francisco, etc. The urban farming movement, with its production of food, its educational aims and the idea of creating sustainable situations, has been able to take root in many cities and metropolises as it is closely integrated with the urban ecosystem. For the most part it is the poor and women who, working on small farms located both inside and outside the city, are nurturing this politico-cultural movement. Their agricultural settings are creating new and interesting landscapes that need to be analyzed from an aesthetic perspective as well for the influence that they might have on contemporary landscape architecture. The phenomenon could have repercussions on the visual conventions of the urban and suburban environment and even affect the behavior and lifestyles of city dwellers should it develop on a larger scale.