Today’s society is facing complex societal challenges connected with urbanization and food production. Urban agriculture including urban farming and urban gardening can be considered a nature-based solution providing solutions for various challenges such as climate change mitigation, ecosystem services, resource efficiency, urban renewal, public health, social cohesion or local economy. However, it needs a better understanding of impacts and implementation framework conditions related with different types of urban agriculture such as technological (e.g., aquaponics) or natural oriented urban agriculture (e.g., permaculture). The target of this working group is to exchange knowledge on different types of urban agriculture worldwide.

Current activities related to the working group are:

– Symposium during the 10^th IALE World Congress, July 1-5 2019; Milano, Italy

– Special Issue in the SURE partner journal Sustainability

Further ideas for activities (e.g., common research, workshops) are welcome. If you are a SURE member and interested to join the working group, please contact Dr. Martina Artmann.

News

Special Issue of Sustainability now published:

“A Systemic Perspective on Urban Food Supply: Assessing Different Types of Urban Agriculture“

edited by Martina Artmann, Kathrin Specht, Jan Vávra and Marius Rommel,

This Special Issue was initiated in the course of various sessions organized by the guest editors in the course of the ESP Europe conference 2018 in San Sebastian (Spain), the IALE World Congress 2019 in Milan (Italy) and the Dresden Nexus Conference 2020 (Germany).

In total, the Special Issue comprises 15 articles including one conceptual paper and 14 case studies from different countries: Australia, Benin, China, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK. The papers cover a broad range of impact and implementation dimensions, assessment methods and geographical backgrounds that can support future studies to develop a systemic perspective on urban food production.

The guest editors want to express our sincere gratitude to all authors and reviewers who have contributed their time and effort to make this Special Issue possible and we are looking forward to further exchange and research on this topic, such as in the course of the SURE Working Group on urban agriculture.