Taking context into account in urban agriculture governance: Case studies of Warsaw (Poland) and Ghent (Belgium)

This article explores the role of local particularism in relation to the global interest in urban agriculture (UA). A growing movement is advocating UA, but future prospects are limited by variability, unclear expectations, vague responsibilities and leadership in the UA movement. We wonder whether the poor understanding of UA governance is associated with a public discourse and academic literature that too easily adopt the generic and universally claimed benefits. We argue here that uncritical enthusiasm results in an overly instrumental approach to governance of UA with a main focus on stimulating formal (e.g., policy making) and informal advocacy (e.g., civic engagement in UA). We do not deny the importance of formal and informal advocacy in UA development, but rather claim that the potential of UA needs a more nuanced analysis. Study of the interplay between UA advocacy and a city’s contextual characteristics is a worthy pursuit, as it may provide significant and more profound explanations for the divergence observed in UA developments. Case studies performed in Warsaw (Poland) and Ghent (Belgium) serve to illustrate the importance of context. The results suggest that neither case is likely to benefit from a governance strategy that only stimulates greater advocacy and institutional support. The inclusion of city-specific needs, opportunities and pitfalls of UA in the governance strategy can help to move UA toward its full potential. We suggest a policy-making strategy for UA that expands beyond the realm of food production alone. Ultimately, the aim is to steer away from assessing (and critiquing) UA solely against the backdrop of these generic success factors.     

基于SWOT分析都市农业发展模式研究 ———以广州市为例

该文运用实证分析法,对广州现存都市农业格局进行剖析,并通过SWOT分析法,提出广州都市 农业发展中存在的问题,提出广州都市农业发展战略,明确以后的发展方向。分析表明:广州都市农业发 展已具相当规模,形成了优势特色农产品、休闲观光农业、农业产业化经营体系及都市农业社会化服务体 系的基本格局。对广州都市农业发展环境的SWOT分析,表明广州都市农业应选择通过各种不同发展模式 的应用强化农业产业集聚度、产业化经营的提升和提高农业抵御风险的能力的发展策略。最后提出广州都 市农业发展适宜优势农产品带动型、科技带动型、服务带动型、物流带动型四种都市农业发展模式。     

国外城市农业研究进展及展望

[目的]随着城市食物安全与环境问题的逐步显现,全球城市农业发展得到了更广的空间与政策支持,大量研究不断涌现。梳理国外城市农业研究,提出未来的研究方向与重点,以期为国内相关研究与管理工作的开展提供参考与支持。[方法]文章利用文献分析法、比较与归纳分析法,通过搜集国外城市农业研究的相关文献,从概念演变、研究主题、研究方法等方面进行了系统总结。[结果]国外已有研究主要包括城市农业与社会经济、城市农业与生态环境、城市农业发展评价与模式、城市农业发展环境4个主题,研究方法主要用到了社会调查、统计分析、地理信息技术、生命周期评估、试验分析等。[结论]国外城市农业研究研究视角不断延伸,内容更加综合,尺度不断细化,方法向多学科融合发展。我国应加强与国际研究接轨,满足未来可持续性城市与现代农业不断融合发展的需求。     

Enhancing urban agriculture through participants’ satisfaction: The case of Seoul,Korea

South Korea has been lending a variety of official support to promote the urban agriculture (UA), especially after enacting Act on Development and Support of Urban Agriculture (Act of UA) in 2011. Under this policy, which aims at spreading the UA effectively in dense cities, in particular, the government categorizes spaces used for the UA into five types in accordance with their characteristics and has extended customized support. But it has never been explored if the Korean version of the UA has satisfied the participants and there exist any differences in the satisfaction level among participants of each spatial type.With a goal to explore the policy effectiveness, therefore, this research carried out interviews and surveys involving 808 citizens who have taken part in UA activities in 68 farmlands in South Korea's capital city of Seoul and then analyzed them with the ANOVA and the hierarchical regression analysis methods The results revealed statistically significant differences among the different UA types in terms of the respondents’ overall satisfaction, the current status of the UA operation, and policy measures that affect the satisfaction level as well as their effects. Overall, however, the participation of female citizens, the supply of physical facilities by public entities, and the increase in the time respondents were involved in UA and their cultivating areas turned out to positively affect their satisfaction level.     

规模经营背景下农户参与农业技术培训的影响因素研究基于全国4省数据的实证分析

目的 利用全国4省1 039户农户调查数据,深入分析在规模经营背景下影响农户参与农业技术培训的相关因素,进而为改进农业技术培训政策、促进农业现代化提供有益借鉴。方法 文章在控制农户户主个人特征、家庭特征、村庄特征及地区特征的基础上,将农户分为规模经营农户和普通小农户两类,构建零膨胀负二项模型解决样本数据存在的“零膨胀”问题和“过离散”问题,分析影响规模经营农户与普通农户参加农业技术培训的相关因素。结果 是否规模经营、家庭劳动力比例、是否参加农业合作社等家庭特征变量,户主年龄和受教育程度等户主特征,乡镇农技员数量以及地区虚拟变量,是影响农户参加农业技术培训的重要因素。其中,规模经营农户的平均农技培训参加次数显著高于普通农户,为其1.276倍,规模经营户的农技培训参加次数发生率之比要比非规模经营户高27.6%;家庭劳动力比例对参加农业技术培训的次数呈现显著的正向影响,劳动力比例每提高1个百分点,农户参加农技培训的可能性提高61.3%;农户是否加入合作社对参加农业技术培训存在显著的负向影响,合作社成员参加农技培训的发生率之比要比非合作社成员低26.6%;户主年龄对农户参加农业技术培训存在负向影响,户主年龄每增加1岁其参加农业技术培训的可能性就会降低1.1%;户主受教育程度越高,农户平均参加农业技术培训次数的发生率之比显著提升;而乡镇农技员数量对农户参加农业技术培训存在显著的负向影响。就地区而言,相对于黑龙江地区,四川、河南地区农户参加农业技术培训的可能性相对较低。结论 年龄相对较小、受教育水平相对较高、从事规模经营的农户更倾向于参加农业技术培训,且表现出一定的地区差异。政府开展农业技术培训,应当更多地向青年农民、规模经营农户倾斜,且需要根据各地实际情况因地制宜制定培训政策。     

The challenges to urban agriculture in the Sydney basin and lower Blue Mountains region of Australia

The western edge of the Sydney basin in Australia has been one of the major sources of fruit and vegetables for the Sydney markets. A rapid expansion of urban development in this region has caused a significant reduction in the number of small farms and market gardens. Urban and peri-urban agriculture in the region also provides an important buffer between urban development and the neighbouring Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. The decline in urban agriculture can be attributed to various causes including urban expansion and economies of scale. This paper presents an overview of a four-year project that explored options for supporting these vulnerable farming communities both in terms of the regulatory factors and economic and environmental sustainability. The role of agri-industries as landscape buffers to the neighbouring World Heritage Area was investigated in relation to resilience, communities of practice, and ecosystem services. The study developed tools, in conjunction with targeted representative landholders, that can assist in enhancing the economic and environmental resilience of these agri-industries. These tools included an integrated bio-system approach to waste using organic waste conversion, and the use of landscape function analysis to monitor across farms to help address erosion, loss of nutrients and inefficient water management.     

Understanding the impacts of ‘Grain for Green’ land management practice on land greening dynamics over the Loess Plateau of China

Land greening in China is regarded as contributing a great deal to greening of the Earth. The phenomenon is mainly attributed to climate change, arising atmospheric CO₂ and ‘Grain for Green’ (GFG) land management policies. However, limited knowledge is known how much land greening is from contributions of the GFG practice. Therefore, the study took the typical region of the GFG practice, the Loess Plateau, as the study area, and used 1982–2015 satellite-observed GIMMS3g normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data, ERA-Interim climatic variables (precipitation, temperature and solar radiation) and atmospheric CO₂ concentration data with the help of a developed TPRC-based NDVI model to derive GFG-induced NDVI after 1999. Furthermore, this study tracked the spatial-temporal dynamics of GFG-induced NDVI and assessed contributions of the GFG practice to regional vegetation changes. Results showed that satellite-observed NDVI and TPRC-based NDVI both exhibited an increasing spatial pattern from the northwestern to southeastern Loess Plateau, but their greening trends were separately 0.0022 and 0.0009 per year in 1982–2015 (p < 0.05). Note that the satellite-observed greening trend was much steeper with a slope of 0.0056 per year after 2006 (p < 0.05). The subsequent analyses documented that GFG-induced land greening were largely responsible for the steep trend. In space, evident greening patterns began to be observed in the central Loess Plateau from 2006 to 2008, afterwards expanded towards eastern and southwestern Loess Plateau. In 2011–2015, the increase magnitude of GFG-induced land greening in the Loess Plateau averagely accounted for 8.5 % in comparison to estimated TPRC-based NDVI, but in six natural zones were various, ranging from 3.2%–15.7%. In some regions of central Loess Plateau, GFG-induced NDVI contributed even more than 20 % to vegetation increase. This study highlights that land use management contributes more to land greening dynamics over the Loess Plateau compared to climate change and arising atmospheric CO₂ concentration. These findings likely provide some valuable information for curbing or enhancing specific-location vegetation changes in future regional land management and planning.