Category FAQs Search : Urban Farming
Question: Building Community Capacity through Urban Agriculture
Answer: Urban agriculture is promoted as a tool to meet goals of social sustainability. Although urban
agriculture as a whole is a large sector of gardening and farming activities within and near
urban areas and social sustainability is most affiliated with how the urban environment has
been built to foster opportunities to pursue a “good life” for citizens. This thesis contributes
to the application of the community capacity model to evaluate the assets and needs of two
case studies: Malmö and Minneapolis to determine how urban agriculture can aid
municipalities looking to meet social sustainability goals. The research finds that communities
are prohibited or enabled by the programs, policies, and resources provided by the
municipality. Therefore, the municipality must take a proactive role in fostering the urban
agriculture movement. The ability of the community to capture these resources and address
problems is limited by the community’s capacity. Malmö has been less able to invigorate a new
paradigm of urban agriculture away from the historically grounded allotment (kolonilotten),
whereas Minneapolis has engaged in community gardening for decades and is able to capitalize
on that experience to expand it to urban farms in addition to community gardens. This
outcome is most apparent when analyzing it through the lens of the goals or “function” of the
urban agriculture movements of the respective cities. In Malmö the focus is on social
sustainability, and therefore the largest benefit is from developing more community gardens.
In Minneapolis the goal is to grow the local food movement, and therefore the outcome is the
development of larger-scale urban farms. Therefore imparting that the goal or “function”
must be framed in a way that addresses context specific needs but also does not over-promise
outcomes. Community gardens in particular and urban agriculture in general provide an outlet
for people to rebuilt a cultural connection to locally produced food as well as connect within
the community to those they would otherwise not meet. It therefore is an effective tool to be
used to support social sustainability goals as well as to foster a re-newed food culture.
(Source: , 23 Sep 2021)
Source Link: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/289949161.pdf