New Forms of Urban Agriculture: An Urban Ecology Perspective

Eating locally and developing an urban-rural food continuum is a rapidly evolving movement. Integration of multi-functional forms of agriculture — termed New Forms of Urban Agriculture (NFUA) — could be a critical adaptation to strengthen this movement and for the sustainability of cities. While NFUA have the potential to provide diverse benefits to humans, there is an absence of reliable empirical data on the scale and impact of urban resources on NFUA which has a profound impact on its viability and sustainability. In this book, we shift the focus from how NFUA have potential to impact the urban system to investigate the potential impacts of urban resources on NFUA. Access to resources such as land, labour, clean water, etc. are major barriers to enter the agriculture sector in the cities; the chapters in this book present projects or reviews recent research on the subject from different cities in the world. This edited volume offers critical perspectives from diverse disciplines, expertise, and geographic contexts related to the actual and potential role of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the developing and the developed world where forms, adaptations, and debates around NFUA vary distinctively. Using and urban ecology lens, the book provides empirical evidence of how urban resources of land, water/waste, labour, and biodiversity impact NFUA.

Jessica Ann Diehl (Editor) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore where she teaches geodesign and a community design studio addressing issues of urban food security in the Master of Landscape Architecture Programme. Research interests include place-based investigation of social networks, health equity, and alternative food systems. She holds a PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Colorado Denver, USA where she was a National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT PhD Fellow in Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Systems and a 2013-2014 Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellow affiliated with the School of Human Ecology at Ambedkar University Delhi, India. She holds a BLA/MLA in landscape architecture from The Pennsylvania State University, and a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College.

Harpreet Kaur (Editor) Harpreet Kaur's research interest focuses on taking an ecological approach towards understanding functions and drivers within agroecosystems and applying this knowledge towards sustainable management of farming systems. At Agroparistech, she investigated the effects of agriculture on biogeochemical cycles at local and national scales. By quantifying how nutrients flow across various components of agricultural production, she seeks to evaluate the factors that lead to nutrient surpluses or losses. Her previous research work mainly focused on high altitude agriculture in the Indian Cold Desert. She holds a M.Phil in Environmental Sciences from the Jawarharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, where she was a Senior Research Fellow funded by University Grants Commission, India.