Sustainability, Unraveled: The Social Benefits of Agriculture in an Urban Environment

Urban agriculture is a growing part of the environmental sustainability and food security movement in North America. However, in places where people live on less than a dollar a day, urban agriculture has played an important role for a long time. Subsistence agriculture, barter networks and other forms of non-monetary exchange are critical when incomes are limited, yet many of the world's poorest people live in urban environments where the places to grow food are also more limited than in rural agricultural areas. These urban areas are hubs of agriculture nonetheless.

What does farming look like in an urban hub? Urban farming might consist of micro-farms of livestock like chickens, beans growing on the side of the road, or the harvest of urban fruit trees. It might also consist of gathering, composting, and reselling urban food scraps, collecting and processing fruit into wine and jam, or raising fish in a fish pond. As people move in large numbers from rural to urban areas, these skills come too, as does a desire to make a living from an urban job. But when jobs that pay a good wage are scarce in the urban environment, subsistence agriculture can play a role in supporting a family once again.

Small agricultural ventures can help sustain the health of a family in an urban environment. If a starch or two forms the basis of a person's diet, fresh produce fills an important gap: it provides micronutrients that may not be found in other foods. It is also fresh and unprocessed food. Families who grow food also help the sustainability of child health in a family by adding calories to the diets of growing children.

There is also a social role for agriculture in an urban environment, one far beyond what is immediately apparent. When men go out to work, women might look after the children and do piecework or tend an urban farm. The sustainability of the family depends on everyone playing a role in family support. Female-headed households in particular rely on urban agriculture.

While agriculture in urban areas is not a complete solution to for families seeking a sustainable livelihood, but it is an addition to a family's standard of living. While the benefits of urban agriculture can be overblown to the extreme, it is a small but important activity that supports human health and social well-being.