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Let's Grow Our Food Ourselves

Although its popularity seems to be growing very quickly in recent few years, urban agriculture has been around for decades in many places around the world. Its history can be traced back to the very origin of cities. Jane Jacobs (1969), a very well known writer in urban studies, suggested in her book, The Economy of Cities, that dense settlements (which evolving into cities) are the main precursors of urban agriculture. The activity of growing food for self consumption in the urban environment is not a new idea. In fact, urban agriculture is believed to be responsible for the dramatic growth of cities. As the cities grew and became more complex and populated with more and more people, agriculture works were moved to the surrounding lands. Thus, urban/rural division was formed. This understanding confirms the theory of cities dependency to extensive agriculture (as mentioned in my previous post: The Secret of El Dorado: Re-thinking How Societies Thrive or Fall).


There are a lot of benefits of growing your own foods by practicing urban farming. You can have healthier lifestyle by consuming self-cultivated organic vegetables and fruits. Gardening is also good exercise as it makes you go outside, breath fresh air, and do physical activities such as digging, planting, weeding, etc. It can also contributes to relieve your stress because you will spend more time with nature. A current research in the Netherlands indicates that gardening can resist stress better than other leisure activities (Harding 2011).


From financial perspective, urban farming could also save money on your pocket because you will spend less money for food consumption. From social perspective, community gardening (a form of urban farming) also encourages social interactions between neighbors. From environmental perspective, urban farming creates more green spaces and to some extent, reduce ecological footprint caused by transportation of conventional food chain.


Jakarta berkebun, a social movement promoting urban farming in Jakarta, Indonesia (majalahasri.com 2015)


In my home country, Indonesia, urban farming has started to gain popularity in the recent years. Thanks to Indonesia Berkebun (Gardening Indonesia), a social movement co-initiated by Sigit Kusumawijaya, Ridwan Kamil (current Mayor of Bandung City), and several other co-founders, urban farming is now widely acknowledged in many different cities in Indonesia. Indonesia Berkebun was started in Jakarta in 2011 as Jakarta Berkebun. Since then, its network has expanded into 30 cities and 8 campuses across Indonesia.


In Sydney, I found Pocket City Farms, an excellent initiative which is trying to transform Sydney's neglected spaces into urban farming spaces. The aim is to transform unused spaces into farming field where neighbors can gather and participate in producing organic, local, chemical-free produce. Large-scale conventional mono-culture farming model has been known to reduce soil fertility and wipe out the nutrients. The world's population is expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050. Food security is an obvious global issue. If practiced massively, urban farming could be a strategy to help tackling the problem of world's food shortage.


References:


Harding, A 2011, 'Why gardening is good for your health', 8 July,


Jacobs, J 1969, The Economy of Cities, Random House, New York.





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