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Socioeconomics of Agriculture

The well-being of farms, in addition to the environmental impacts of agriculture, must also be considered.

Urbanization

The world has steadily become more urbanized over time, and this is likely to continue.

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Source: The World Bank 1.

As urbanization proceeds, rural land tends to be converted to urban land, which has a greater economic value. However, as urban land is still only about 1% of all land, this conversion is not likely to threaten food security 2. Rural to urban conversion is driven by a combination of migration to cities, population growth within cities, and the reclassification of rural villages into urban 3.

The conversion of rural to urban land is generally driven by economics; when land is more valuable for urban purposes, conversion occurs 2. However, farmers can lose income in the process of converting. Of particular concern are rural to urban conversions that are involuntary, without adequate compensation to farmers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Urban Agriculture

Yields of organic agriculture within cities have been found to be comparable with other forms of organic agriculture.

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Comparisons of urban and conventional agriculture are difficult, and numbers should be regarded as highly approximate. Source: Taylor 9.

Additional research from Australia 10 has found that urban agriculture tends to have higher yields (food per unit area) but also higher cost, labor needs, and energy requirements. For community gardens in particular, the health and well-being of people and communities involved is a high priority 11. However, given the small area of cities relative to farmland, urban agriculture cannot be a significant replacement for conventional agriculture unless of a very high yield.

Local Knowledge

Local knowledge of agriculture can contain information on yields, pest management, and other factors that is not readily avaialable to widespread scientific knowledge. Several studies have confirmed the value of local knowledge 12, 13, 14, 15. However, little information is available to quantify the value of local knowledge.

References

  1. World Bank. "Urban population (% of total population)". Accessed December 29, 2020. ↩

  2. Satterthwaite, D., McGranahan, G., Tacoli, C. "Urbanization and its implications for food and farming". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 365(1554), pp. 2809–2820. September 2010. ↩ ↩2

  3. Farrell, K. "The Rapid Urban Growth Triad: A New Conceptual Framework for Examining the Urban Transition in Developing Countries". Sustainability 9(8), 1407. August 2017. ↩

  4. Abdissa, F., Degefa, T. "Urbanization and Changing Livelihoods: The Case of Farmers’ Displacement in the Expansion of Addis Ababa". The Demographic Transition and Development in Africa, pp. 215-235. January 2010. ↩

  5. Gwan, A., Kimengsi, J. "Urban Expansion and the Dynamics of Farmers’ Livelihoods: Evidence from Bamenda, Cameroon". Sustainability 12(14), pp. 5788. July 2020. ↩

  6. Mohammed, I., Kosa, A., Juhar, N. "Economic linkage between urban development and livelihood of peri-urban farming communities in Ethiopia (policies and practices)". Agricultural and Food Economics 8, Article number 21. September 2020. ↩

  7. Wegedie, K. "Determinants of peri-urban households' livelihood strategy choices: An empirical study of Bahir Dar city, Ethiopia". Cogent Social Sciences 4(1), Article 1562508. December 2018. ↩

  8. Wegedie, K. "The Impact of Urban Expansion on the Livelihood of Farming Communities in Peri-Urban Area of Bahir Dar City Amahara, Ethiopia". Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development 9(9). 2018. ↩

  9. Taylor, J. "Modeling the Potential Productivity of Urban Agriculture and Its Impacts on Soil Quality Through Experimental Research on Scale-Appropriate Systems". Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. July 2020. ↩

  10. McDougall, R., Kristiansen, P., Rader, R. "Small-scale urban agriculture results in high yields but requires judicious management of inputs to achieve sustainability". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116(1), pp. 129-134. December 2018. ↩

  11. Brown, K., Jameton, A. "Public Health Implications of Urban Agriculture". Journal of Public Health Policy 21, pp. 21-39. March 2000. ↩

  12. Beckford, C., Barker, D. "The role and value of local knowledge in Jamaican agriculture: adaptation and change in small-scale farming". The Geographical Journal 173(2), pp. 118-128. June 2007. ↩

  13. Perez-Aleman, P. "Global standards and local knowledge building: Upgrading small producers in developing countries". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109(31), pp. 12344-12349. July 2012. ↩

  14. Pretty, J., Thompson, J., Hinchcliffe, F. "Sustainable Agriculture: Impacts on Food Production and Challenges for Food Security". International Institute for Environment and Development, Gatekeeper Series No. 60. January 1996. ↩

  15. Šūmane, S., Kunda, I., Knickel, K., Strauss, A., Tisenkopfs, T., des los Rios, I., Rivera, M., Chebach, T., Ashkenazy, A. "Local and farmers' knowledge matters! How integrating informal and formal knowledge enhances sustainable and resilient agriculture". Journal of Rural Studies 59:232-241. March 2018. ↩