Faced with the growing demand to make space for agricultural production in cities, Apur led a research programme with the Urban School of Science Po to benchmark fifteen projects underway in a dozen major metropolises.
Accompanied by Apur, five students doing the Master’s in Governing Ecological Transition in European Cities (GETEC) conducted a benchmarking exercise on fifteen urban agriculture projects being carried out in France, Europe and North America.
The cities involved are Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, London, Rotterdam, Vienna, Montreal, New-York and a number of French cities.
This benchmarking illustrates many diverse forms of urban agriculture which, apart from providing a food resource, is a powerful lever for social links, integration and environmental education. Urban agriculture also allows much larger areas of cities to be devoted to nature as well as introducing a new aesthetic into the urban landscape. It also addresses environmental challenges by reintroducing biodiversity into the urban context and contributes to creating cool urban islands. Finally, it is a tool for alerting people to the problems of food insecurity, a major issue in cities. Although its food potential remains as yet relatively low, urban agriculture is one of the tools for rendering cities more resilient, be they in open ground, on roofs, underground, indoors or even on water.
