Abstract
Urban Agriculture (UA)—a system of growing foods within and around the city areas using available non-commercial, commercial, and hybrid technologies—is an emerging approach in the recent development of agriculture and food systems. UA has substantial social, economic, and environmental wellbeing outcomes with broader policy implications for sustainable urban development, which is confronted with the challenge of feeding the rapidly growing urban population in developing countries. Given its potential benefits, this chapter investigates how can this be realized in Nepal’s context for the welfare of society and sustainable development. It particularly focusses on the policy agenda that is required for this realization. Rapid rural–urban migration and increased trends of urbanization have made UA an essential approach to meet the growing demand of healthy, diversified, fresh and quality food. It uses multidimensional and multifunctional approaches to farming through the fusion of traditional and modern technologies. For the realization of its benefits, it is important to investigate the wellbeing dimensions of UA and how these dimensions are related to achieving sustainable development goals by making cities and communities sustainable, minimizing hunger, and adapting to climate change. This chapter concludes that the selection of proper indicators, formulation of robust policy and program, development of institutional and human resources, and coordination among multiple jurisdiction should be the major actions for optimum wellbeing from UA practices in Nepal, which we believe could also apply to other developing countries with similar context.
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Kafle, A., Myers, B., Adhikari, R., Adhikari, S., Sanjel, P.K., Padhyoti, Y. (2022). Urban Agriculture as a Wellbeing Approach and Policy Agenda for Nepal. In: Timsina, J., Maraseni, T.N., Gauchan, D., Adhikari, J., Ojha, H. (eds) Agriculture, Natural Resources and Food Security. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09555-9_13
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