The importance of human and
ecosystems health and safety issues related to
UPA is not adequately captured by the
livelihoods framework, even though “human
health” is considered part of human capital
and the value of natural capital is partly
determined by its “health”. The urban
ecosystems health framework
provides a better lens for analyzing health
issues related to urban agriculture. It is based
on the interdependence of human health with the
health of the natural, physical and social
environments within which urban populations
live. It focuses attention on six dimensions of
urban health where UPA can have both a positive
and negative impact.
UPA has the potential for
positive impact on the (1)health of urban
populations through improved food security,
nutrition and psychosocial well-being.
Individual and family
health can indirectly benefit through the income
earned from UPA. Negative impacts come into play
through the over-use of pesticides and human
exposure to contaminants and pathogens
associated with UPA. Zoonotic diseases (diseases
of animals that can be transmitted to humans) can also be a risk of urban livestock raising. Health
benefits and risks are not equitably distributed
within populations: the marginal groups may have
to make use of the most contaminated lands for
crop production, or through lack of capital may
opt to use sewage water as fertilizer source.
Women, who are the main fieldworkers in many
regions, may be at greater risk of pesticide
poisoning.
The framework also recognizes the
importance of (2)communal health, a
concept closely linked to the notion of
sustainable communities and cities. Distinct
from population health, communal health refers
to the viability and vitality of communities in
terms of their mutual support, trust and sharing
and level of participation. UPA has the
potential to contribute positively to communal
health through collaborative agricultural
activities, productive utilization of urban
waste products, the provision of a common green
space and through networks that link producers
and consumers through markets.
UPA is able to contribute to the (3)quality
of the built environment through provision
of green spaces and tree planting, enhancing the
“livability” of cities, and efficient
recognition and use of urban resources. An
important potential contribution of UPA to the
built environment is the recycling of organic
wastes within the urban and peri-urban area
through composting, rather than expelling them
as contaminants into the environment. UPA has
the potential both to improve and to cause
deterioration in the (4)quality of the
physical environment through conditioning
or contaminating air, soils and water.
The (5)health and
resilience of the biotic community in the
urban environment can also be
strengthened or weakened by UPA, depending on
the levels of diversity cultivated and methods
of crop management adopted and the kinds of
markets that are targeted. UPA also has the
capacity to affect positively (6)the health
of the natural ecosystems beyond the urban
and peri-urban areas by stabilizing or breaking
down pollutants, reducing food demands and thus
reducing the “ecological footprint” of the
city.
Access to
natural and physical resources for agriculture
and the potential impact of agriculture on these
resources is important, although this is not
enough. Natural and physical resources, of
potentially great use to urban agriculture, go
unrecognized by local officials or remain
underutilized by poor
urban households. Hence the concept of urban
resources recognition and use is employed to
address the high potential of urban agriculture
to mobilize and add value to natural and
physical resources, such as small pieces of
marginal land, and, thus, strengthen and balance
capital assets available to urban communities.
Strongly linked to both the livelihoods and
urban ecosystems health frameworks, this will
form the basis of a third module with an
emphasis on resource mapping, modeling and
policy development.
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Urban Health Resource Activities
