Urban Agriculture: The Fuel of the Future
Can urban agriculture be part of a sustainable future for a metropolis like New York City?
Cities are melting pots of the newest trends in social movements, political pursuits, fashion, entertainment and more. The charm of an urban environment lies in its proximity to practically everything. Everything, but food. However, the greatest demand for food, water and other resources comes from these very cities. Therein lies the root of the problem: skyrocketing demand but a lack of easy access to locally grown food. According to a United Nations claim, agricultural production would have to increase by 70% to meet the demand from urban dwellers. Can urban agriculture really keep up?
22 countries have the capacity to feed their city populations by farming on less than 10% of their land, posits Jill Epstein, a writer for the Food & Hunger section of Global Citizen. She combines this with the statistic that some urban farms are currently producing over 500 pounds of food to argue that urban farms can be a source of abundant food despite availability of very small plots of land. Unfortunately though, these estimates ignore recommended nutritional standards and the terrible odds that produce for consumption from urban farms will truly be able to account for an adequate and healthy amount of fruits and vegetables for a large group of people. This brings in a very important question of food security and sustainability. Terry Hain, a writer for About geography expresses that out of 29 most food insecure nations, 23 would need to farm on “over 100%” (unrealistic) of their urban land to feed city dwellers with adequate nutritive food servings.
A study done by a team of geographers from McGill University reveals that roughly a third of the world’s urban space would need to be planted with vegetables to meet the global demand of city dwellers. Although this sounds hopeful and chirpy it is hard to ignore the nuanced and complicated nature of the process that has just as many cons as pros and just as much disappointment as hope. Only nine countries could really feed their cities with less than 10% of urban land while 51 countries will not even be able to reach their recommended daily serving of 300 grams of vegetables even if they devoted all of their cities to cultivation of food. It is worth remembering that an average person’s diet does not solely consist of fresh vegetables and the demand for a variety of off-season and eclectically produced food by city dwellers is not a standard urban agriculture is equipped to live up to yet.
High population density and less available urban space is indeed an awful equation when analyzed in light of feeding the entire city of New York with all its fancy demands. Unused lots, backyards and rooftops are being turned into urban farms and gardens but the need for artificial heating, irrigation and lighting can often add to energy usage where mass production systems outside of the city can save such cost of production. A critical disincentive for urban farmers is also the threat of contaminated soil. High levels of air pollution and heavy metals in urban soil pose serious health risks that can compromise brain, liver or kidney functioning. Even if the soil was purified and the pollution controlled before cultivation began the entire process would prove to be costly and grossly inefficient.
For Northeastern U.S cities such as New York a large winter season often poses a huge problem that precludes year-round farming and mass production of food. This is often why despite the number and scale of urban farms in New York City a lot of food needs to be imported from far-flung states and countries anyway. Samantha Jakuboski, an environmental writer for Nature Journal Scitable Network with a keen interest in sustainable living, says, “Due to the demand for fruits like strawberry and watermelon 24/7 the need to import from out-of-state and countries like Mexico is very high.”
She continued by emphatically expressing:
“New Yorkers are demanding and don’t care what season it is. We just want our food!”
When questioned about the feasibility of locavorism and urban cultivation initiatives she explained that even though locavorism is a definite way of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, presently “hitting the roof due to transportation over long distances”, the scale of such set-ups does not seem large enough to sustain lives of the 5 million who call New York City home.
Senator Sherrod Brown sponsored the “Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act” in 2011 while Michelle Obama has become a leader of the food reform movement. Amid heightened concern about global climate change, locavorism is often the recommended route back to our agricultural roots. Although it is a practical way to reduce the carbon footprint global food distribution networks are presently imposing and shortening the distance from farm to fork is absolutely key, implicit in the argument that urban farming is more environmentally beneficial than industrial agriculture is an assumption of its efficiency, optimization and the ignorance of more downsides than one. Resources, research and development need to be further focused on this field to attain the level of advancement and evolution required before we can put on our gardening gloves and tout urban agriculture as the ultimate solution to issues of long-distance transportation of food.
