Cities Feeding People and Gender
People from all cultural, socio economic, gender and age groups are involved in urban agriculture. However, in many societies, women predominate in numerous urban production systems – particularly those at or close to home – as well as in the processing and marketing of city grown products. Women very often experience more difficult, risky and inadequate access to land, water, labour, capital, technologies, and other services. Although urban agriculture may afford a relatively easy entry point into the urban economy for migrants from rural areas, the unemployed or people unskilled in urban trades, women's ability to thrive within and beyond this sector is often detrimentally affected by laws, customs and attitudes which bar them from asset ownership or decision making regarding their use.

To read more about this subject as well as to access key documents on the topic, please view the IDRC Cities Feeding People website

Gender Resources for Urban Agriculture Research: Methodology, Directory and Annotated Bibliography (by Alice Hovorka, IDRC, 1998) (pdf. format)
This guide was developed specifically for urban agriculture projects. It takes the reader through all the stages of the project cycle and includes seven tools for data collection. It also includes and annotated bibliography with 91 references and a directory of resource persons.  

Women Feeding Cities Proceedings of the Gender Mainstreaming in Urban Food Production and Food Security Workshop.  Jointly organized by ETC-RUAF and CGIAR-Urban Harvest in  collaboration with IWMI-Ghana. Download the pdf version.

back to top 

While urban agriculture and livestock-keeping form an essential component of the livelihood activities of many poor urban dwellers, much of this is carried out in marginal strips of wasteland, unused lots used as dumping grounds, and often combined with use of wastewater for irrigation. With increasing concerns about heavy metal uptake by plants grown in contaminated grounds, and harmful pathogens found in wastewater, an important research area in urban agriculture is how to make efficient use of urban resources while minimizing health risks for producer and consumer.

Article on Food Safety in Urban Agriculture using Simplified Hydroponics (pdf. format)

back to top

HIV/AIDS has an enormous impact on the livelihood of people in Africa, including those involved in UPA. It negatively affects the availability of labor for farming as well as a great number of other activities geared towards sustaining well-being. HIV/AIDS may lead to increasing poverty levels, reduced productivity of land and labor, lower savings and investments, and insecurity of land tenure and rights, hence food security.

HIV/AIDS documents and links (including online databases)

Gender and HIV/AIDS Information Pack

HIV/AIDS, Urban Local Government and The Urban Management Programme in Sub Saharan Africa: A discussion paper by the UMP Regional Office for Africa. (pdf. format)

back to top

Livestock raising is an important component of urban agriculture, presenting its own specific problems and opportunities. While this livelihood activity is very valuable to urban families in terms of providing scarce animal protein to their diets and a good cash income, policy makers and city planners have mostly regarded it as problematic, backward and a sign of poverty. As with all branches of urban agriculture, however, livestock keeping now seems to be recognized for the positive role that it can play in urban living conditions across the world.

CIP-Urban Harvest study of Peri-urban milk production in Peru: Assessing farmers’ decision-making within a changing market

Urban Harvest-CIAT study of Piglet Enterprise Assessment and Improvement in Cat Que Commune, Vietnam

The Livestock Production Programme (LPP) Scoping Study on poor urban and peri-urban livestock keepers in five East African cities (Addis Ababa, Kampala, Nairobi, Kisumu and Dar es Salaam) (pdf. format)

A workshop took place in March 2003 to discuss the findings of the urban livestock keeping report. Several partners including Urban Harvest participated in this workshop. To read the report of the workshop click here. (pdf. format)

FAO review document on Livestock Keeping in Urban Areas This work is based on literature-review as well as field experiences, and includes several illustrative photographs on the topic.

FAO overview on Integrated livestock-fish farming systems
By DC Little and P Edwards
2003, 177pp, ISBN 92 5 1050554(Pb), $32
The integration of livestock and fish production is booming in parts of East and South East Asia, with livestock wastes continuing to be used as a source of feed even in intensive aquaculture systems. This overview of fish-livestock systems aims to draw on the evolution and current status of such systems in Asia, to provide a technical basis for considering their relevance in other parts of the world, particularly Africa and Latin America. The book describes four key aspects of this integrated system in Asia: environmental aspects, such as nutrient recycling; design criteria for livestock-manured ponds; public health considerations; and socio-economic considerations. Transferability of the Asian experience to other parts of the world is also analysed. Intended primarily for policy makers, planners, NGOs and senior research and extension staff, the book benefits from excellent presentation and clearly written text.

back to top    

The MALICA consortium (Markets and Agricultural Linkages for Cities in Asia) brings French and Vietnamese research institutes together. Its main objective is to reinforce the capacity of researchers, students, administrators as well as private groups in analysing food markets and city/country relations. Read the MALICA 2003 report here. (pdf. format)  

back to top  

Appropriate Methods for Urban Agriculture:
Research, Policy Development, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation synthesis of the outcomes of the email conference organized by Urban Harvest and the Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Forestry (RUAF) from 4 - 16  February 2002.

PRA tools for studying Gender in Urban Agriculture (RUAF document) (pdf. format)

Issue no.5, Dec 2001 of Urban Agriculture Magazine on the issue of Appropriate Methodologies for Urban Agriculture. This issue was guest edited by the RUAF and Urban Harvest coordinators.

Database of participatory field tools, methods and approaches developed or applied by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)

back to top  

Mapping Peri-urban Agriculture in Lima: A case study conducted by Urban Harvest using Geographic Information Systems ( GIS )

GIS could be an important tool, especially when used in a participatory way, in the process of making updated land-use maps, for quick geo-referencing of land-use types and identification of suitable areas for agriculture in the city. This would greatly assist city planners to identify zones where agriculture will have better chances i.e. where it will not be erased by competing land-uses such as construction etc, and where it is best suited in terms of fertile lands lying idle (it is possible to map out soil fertility with GIS). With the advent of high resolution imagery it may even be possible to estimate UA output in the city, which will go a long way in opening people's eyes to the popularity and positive potential of UA in cities. Finally, as cities constantly decay/renew and idle land becomes available continuously, a GIS-GPS system could help keep track of the availability and location of vacant land in the city.

Participation Tools for Better Community and Land Use Planning
These tools include Participatory Land-Use Mapping - a technique used to involve members of the public in exploring local and regional land-use planning issues. Residents are, in effect, put in the driver’s seat and challenged to devise solutions to the problem of meeting the community’s projected growth needs while protecting the community’s economic, environmental, and social well-being.

Environmental Management Information System (EMIS)
This is a tool for collecting, organizing and applying information relevant to urban development and the environment. It is designed to assist in clarifying issues, formulating strategies, implementing action plans, monitoring progress and updating changes. The system combines Environmental Planning and Management (EPM) concerns and issues with a carefully structured management information system, using mapping and geographical information systems (GIS) as essential components for presentation, analysis and modeling.  

back to top  

Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health
This IDRC program supports research on the relationship between all components of an ecosystem to define and assess priority problems that affect the health of people and the sustainability of their ecosystem. In pursuing the aim of improving human health and well-being while simultaneously maintaining a healthy ecosystem, the emphasis is on the design of solutions based on ecosystem management rather than health sector interventions. Check out this program on the IDRC website for documents and papers presented at the Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health Forum on the same topic that was organized in May 2003. The website also has a list of publications, case studies, and papers on the topic.

Challenges and Strategies for Implementing the Ecosystem Approach to Human Health in Developing Countries: Reflections from Regional Consultations (pdf. format)
This IDRC-UNEP publication is devoted to promote the Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health concept and to disseminate the main conclusions of three international consultations held in 1999 and 2000 and sponsored by multiple international agencies and regional institutions.

Sustainable Development of Peri-urban Agriculture in South-east Asia (SUSPER)
Within the scope of the SUSPER project, an analysis of vegetable consumption was carried out in 2002. It dealt with both the quantitative (evolution of consumed quantities) and qualitative aspects (associated medical risks) of vegetable consumption. To read this report please click here.(pdf. format)

id21 Insights issue no. 5 on Natural resource management and human health: the forgotten link?  

back to top  

Currently over 50% of the world population is living in urban areas, and while statistics on food and nutrition security may indicate that the urban population as a whole is often better off than the rural, intra-urban differences are enormous, and rates of malnutrition and food insecurity in urban slums can be alarmingly high. Access to food in urban areas is dependent on cash exchange, yet many poor urban families lack a fixed income. In such cases many households use urban agriculture as a means of supplementary income and for direct household consumption, however this is an activity markedly different from its rural counterpart in opportunities available and constraints faced.  

IFPRI 2020 Vision Focus 3, Policy brief by Luc Mougeot: Achieving Urban Food and Nutrition Security in the Developing World: The Hidden Significance of Urban Agriculture

FAO document: The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003 (pdf. format )

IFPRI's research program "Urban Challenges to Food and Nutrition Security" aims at providing policy makers, program administrators and development practitioners with information to make sound policy and program decisions to reduce food insecurity and malnutrition in urban areas. The site has several useful studies on urban livelihoods and food security available online.

The January thematic edition of Cahiers Agricultures : L’alimentation des Villes  collects several interesting francophone studies related to urban food security and nutrition, food-distribution networks, artesanal food processing and  periurban agriculture in Africa, Asia and France.  

back to top

Tools to support Participatory Urban decision making 

World Bank 2003 Urban Symposium Panel on polycentric organization: a fundamental requisite for solving urban problems

Toolkit Citizen Participation in Local Governance

back to top    

The Global Urban Observatory (GUO) addresses the urgent need to improve the world-wide base of urban knowledge by helping Governments, local authorities and organizations of the civil society develop and apply policy-oriented urban indicators, statistics and other urban information. The GUO was established by UN-HABITAT in response to a decision of the United Nations Commission on Human Settlements, which called for a mechanism to monitor global progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda and to monitor and evaluate global urban conditions and trends.

UN-Habitat Best Practices Database: This searchable database contains over 1600 proven solutions from more than 140 countries to the common social, economic and environmental problems of an urbanizing world. It demonstrates the practical ways in which public, private and civil society sectors are working together to improve governance, eradicate poverty, provide access to shelter, land and basic services, protect the environment and support economic development.

The town of Rosario in Argentina won a UN-Habitat Best Practice award for its program in urban agriculture. Go to our UPA Partner News section to read more.

back to top    

Urban and rural areas are increasingly linked and are undergoing wide-reaching and fundamental processes of change. Many poor households have both rural and urban components to their livelihoods, as family members live and work in different places. Seeing 'rural' and 'urban' poverty as distinct can be misleading and can lead to inappropriate planning, development and investment. Bringing the two together provides new insight into urban rural linkages to inform more integrated policy and organisational structures and systems. A number of organisations are looking at this issue, including DFID and the World Bank. (source: www.livelihoods.org)

Livelihoods.org website 'hot topic' : Rural and Urban Change

World Bank Rural-Urban Linkages and Interactions  

back to top  

Upgrading - or slum improvement as it is also called - in low income urban communities is many things, but at its simplest it has come to mean a package of basic services: clean water supply and adequate sewage disposal to improve the well-being of the community. But fundamental is legalizing and ‘regularizing’ the properties in situations of insecure or unclear tenure.

Upgrading Urban Communities - A resource for practitioners

Participatory planning for Urban Upgrading 
This 10-step approach is drawn from a field workshop in the Schweizer-Reneke community of South Africa, April 1995. It details the set-up required and the day-by-day activities in participatory planning.  

back to top  

Integrated Sustainable Waste Management: A Set of Five Tools for Decision-makers. Experiences from the Urban Waste Expertise Progamme

Recycling Urban Waste in Urban Agriculture in Bamako and Ouagadougou (pdf. format)
This applied research project examines the technical and operational potential for improving the use of urban organic waste in urban and peri-urban agriculture in Bamako, Mali and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The project's timeframe was from March 1999 to May 2002.

Agricultural use of untreated urban wastewater in low income countries (pdf. format)- Synthesis document of RUAF/IWMI e-conference

Check out the www.waste.nl website for an extensive collection of publications on the issue of integrated urban waste management (many of which can be downloaded). WASTE is an adviser for development projects in countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Their four main fields of activity are:

Solid waste management and resource recovery

Low-cost sanitation and liquid waste management

Community based environmental improvement

Micro­ and small enterprise development

Employment creation through integrated solid-waste management in Eastern Africa: Improving living conditions and providing jobs for the poor (pdf. format)
Case study from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania where the local government turned around a failing public sector solid-waste collection system by resorting to local micro-enterprises. The households generating the waste pay directly to the waste collection enterprises. Much has been achieved in terms of employment creation, income generation, social integration, waste collected and disposed, area covered and environmental cleanliness.

back to top  

Growing Cities, Growing Food : Urban Agriculture on the Policy Agenda: A Reader on Urban Agriculture
This collection of papers on urban and peri-urban agriculture was jointly produced by 6 development organizations. It contains 7 thematic papers and 16 city case studies from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe.

Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development in Cities throughout the World by Raquel Pinderhughes, focuses on planning and policy approaches and appropriate technologies that can be used to minimize a city's impact on the environment while providing urban residents with the infrastructure and services they need to sustain a high quality of urban life. The book emphasizes ecologically and socially responsible planning and management of the urban infrastructure in five critical areas: water supply and management, waste minimization and management, energy production and use, transportation, and food systems. It presents cases of planning approaches and appropriate technologies being used in cities throughout the world. Many of these cases come from cities in Africa, Latin America, and Asia (as well as Europe and the United States).This book has been published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, ISBN 0-7425-2367-5

DFID Working Paper - Annotated Bibliography on Livelihood Approaches and Development Interventions (pdf. format)

The CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA) develops and promotes methods and organizational approaches for gender-sensitive participatory research on plant breeding and on management of crops and natural resources. Their website combines an exhaustive library of online tools and methods and learning resources relevant to the PRGA's five research themes* with an interactive community space where readers can share opinions, post links, documents and join forum discussions.

The five PRGA research themes are: participatory plant breeding, participatory natural resource management, gender & diversity, impact assessment and mainstreaming.

Circular on Participatory Technology/Innovation Development: the PTD/PID circular can be downloaded from the Prolinnova website. This resource consists of an annotated bibliography of publications, including “grey” reports on work in progress, but also reports on past and upcoming events (workshops, training activities, exchange meetings etc.), on-going programmes and networking activities. The March 2004 issue of the PTD/PID Circular is slightly different in that it provides a selection of readings and web links to enable newcomers to this type of work orient themselves with the available resources.

FAO-commissioned survey report on the Status of UPA in Namibia (2002) (pdf. format)

World Bank study on poverty in Lima (in Spanish) (pdf. format)

back to top