www.cipotato.org/urbanharvest

The dramatic increase during the 20th century in both the rate of urbanization and the size of cities is placing a new significance on urban and peri-urban agriculture in global strategies to alleviate poverty and hunger. More than 800 million people throughout the world are engaged in urban farming, an occupation that was established in the ancient cultures of the Old and New Worlds. Nowadays for many urban dwellers in developing countries, agriculture is a crucial component in a diversified livelihood strategy to sustain themselves in a complex and changing environment. Urban agriculture activities include tending home gardens and grazing animals, as well as working in large-scale livestock, aquaculture, forestry, and greenhouse operations.

Urban food production can contribute greatly to increased efficiencies, both economically (e.g. expanding income options for women with children) and environmentally (e.g. absorbing domestic waste and adding green space). While these are activities that can greatly contribute to improving family health, urban farming can also present real risks such as the contamination of drinking water resulting in the spread of animal-borne diseases.

With half of the world’s population now living in towns or cities and nearly two billion more people expected to be urban dwellers by 2020, development professionals anticipate additional threats to food security, the urban environment, and people’s quality of life. These trends are particularly evident and severe in developing countries, most of which are located in the southern hemisphere. Eight of the nine cities where populations of more than 20 million people are expected by 2020 are located in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. With food insecurity and unemployment expected to rise in those areas, urban and peri-urban agriculture will be an increasingly important livelihood option for the urban poor in those countries.

GOALS. Urban Harvest, the systemwide initiative on urban and peri-urban agriculture of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), was launched in 1999 to address the issues raised by growing urbanization and by the increased dependence of city dwellers on agriculture. The initiative was formerly known by the acronym SIUPA. The goals include:

• increased food security, improved nutritional status, and higher incomes of urban and peri-urban farmers
• reduction of the negative environmental impact of urban and peri-urban agriculture and enhancement of its positive ecological potential
• emphasizing the perception of urban and peri-urban agriculture as a positive, productive, and essential component of sustainable cities

In its role as a partner and catalyst to the various national and international efforts aimed at improving the prospects of urban and peri-urban agriculture, Urban Harvest has established a set of research activities at regional sites in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

Several CGIAR Centers are already investing in such aspects of urban agriculture research as nutrition, technology improvements in peri-urban vegetable production, environmental and conservation issues, policy recommendations, and the development of sustainable peri-urban agroprocessing and livestock enterprises.

OUTPUT. A stakeholder meeting held in June 2000 involving the CGIAR Future Harvest Centers and their collaborating partners produced a conceptual framework for Urban Harvest based on the following themes: stakeholder and policy dialog to anchor the research process in the local institutional and policy context; sustainable urban livelihoods to enhance the contribution of agriculture to increased household food security and well-being; urban resources recognition and use to add value to urban nutrients, land, and water surfaces; and urban ecosystems health to strengthen the contribution of agriculture to household nutrition and mitigation of health risks.

The establishment of regional Urban Harvest anchor sites is the first step in realizing outcomes. So far sites have been established in Hanoi and Manila in Southeast Asia, Yaounde, Kampala, and Nairobi in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in Lima in Latin America. It is expected that linking up with different international and national partners will further increase the scope of Urban Harvest’s activities in different regions of the world.

Implementers anticipate the following outputs will result from the interdisciplinary and interinstitutional collaboration that takes place at the anchor sites:

• innovative production technologies customized for site-specific applications
• alternative environmental management practices identified for application with specific types of urban and peri-urban agriculture activities
• food, nutrition, and environmental management policies geared toward specific regions/cities
• technical and management tools for micro-enterprises

A processing enterprise in peri-urban Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

IMPACTS. It is intended that Urban Harvest will lead to significant improvements in the productivity and sustainability of urban and peri-urban production systems at the pilot sites. At the same time, researchers also foresee a considerable reduction in some of the specific negative impacts of agriculture and agroindustries at those sites. Methodological lessons learned from the work conducted at the sites will be adopted and/or adapted at other locations that are linked to, but not part of, the pilot site activities. To emphasize the commitment of the CGIAR to collaborative approaches in all of the research it undertakes, non-CGIAR organizations and stake-holders will not only be involved in the implementation phase, but will also be expected to benefit from the uptake of methods and approaches developed in pilot sites. Linkages with these partners will continue to be one of the project’s highest priorities.

For more information, please visit our website www.cipotato.org/urbanharvest and/or contact the Urban Harvest Global Coordinator - Gordon Prain at Apartado 1558, Lima 12, Peru, or at g.prain@cgiar.org