COM 0212.453 1996-1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

i of crop rotation typically centered azound towns Angeles were to appeaz on the planet every two I and took decades or longer to reach the most iso- months for the next several decades. Yet, the lated rural azeas. world's capacity to increase supply is approaching its Indeed,.the integration of food production and limits. Recent rises in grain prices, combined with urban fife may once have been universal. Grain cul- declining global stocks, may well be a harbinger of ~ dvation and domesticated animals were present in future food shortages. If ; the eazliest known city, Canal liuyuk in Anatolia the scazcity that many (now Turkey), from its inception j azound 7000 B.C. In pre-Columbian Mexico, the highly productive system ~ ~ _ of Chinampa agriculrure, consisting of ~ ~ 1~ + ~ raised beds surrounded by canals, pro- • « vided most of the food, flowers, and ~ ~ fibers consumed in the Aztec capital of ~ • Tenochtitlan. And in Europe, field j crops were grown both within and out- ~ + w ,II side the walls of medieval cities, In the industrialized world, urban ~ farming largely disappeazed in'this cen- 1~ •r- I tury. But in the developing world it has j persisted, and since the 1970s has even ~ ~ ~ ~ i shown signs of a resurgence. ~ According to the most widely accepted - , ~ estimate, about 200 million urban ~ _ , ~ ~ I r • ~ dwellers now pazticipaxe in urban farm- _ ~ ~ r ; ing, providing 800 million people with ~ - ~F at least some of their food. Farmers in - _ ~ ` ~ • I • Accra, Ghana, supply the city with an ~ y i estimated 90 percent of its vegetables, ' _ ~ ~ including radishes, cabbage, and cau- ~ ' liflower. Farmers in Singapore pro- -•'s.+~ • duce 25 percent of the city's vegeta- bles and 80 percent of its poultry. t. ~ (Much of the grain needed to feed the poultry, however, is brought in from ~ " ~ _ the countryside.) In Berlin, more ~ than 80,000 gazdeners lease plots ~ on land where buildings were destroyed by bombs in World Waz Il. foresee becomes a reality (see "Facing Food Where in-city food production is extensive, it Scazciry," November/December 1995), the impacts can also play an important role in municipal waste won't be spread evenly. It is in the fast-growing management. In China, human waste is treated and cities of the developing world where tens of millions sold to farmers as fertilizer. In India, sewage-fed of impoverished migrants aze concentrating that the lagoons produce about one-tenth of the fish con- increasing competition for food will be felt most sumed by Calcutta. In the more industrialized acutely. As those cities expand, the problem of food countries, concerns about disease have put up bazri- security could balloon into a widespread crisis and a ens to using human waste in agriculrure-bazriers dominant issue for urban policy. Today, although which contributed'to the separation of fazming and urban agriculrure plays a relatively small role in total ' urban living in the first place. But the development food production, it provides a crucial safety net for of techniques for safely reusing urban wastes may many of the people most at risk. With supportive now make it possible to bring farming back into policies, it is likely that this role could be signifi- ~ close proximity wish people. canny expanded. Today's problems of hunger and malnutrition aze less a function of production than of distribu- Meeting urban food needs Lion, since the world's fazmers still produce enough • The global demand for food is expected to food to provide all of humanity with an adequate grow az least.as fast as if ~°~aher Calcutta or Los diet. But the poor_are increasingly squeezed our of ~ ' ~LLiRRA?Ox BY C:x iEll R'nrld tCa¢h•~^°~mhcri Daynhcr i°u~ I