Urban agriculture can contribute to urban food security in times of climate crisis

Agriculture practiced in urban centers needs to emerge from invisibility and be clearly positioned as one of the strategies for promotion of food security in cities. This is the warning issued by the study carried out by Instituto Escolhas, How can the Federal Government support municipalities in fostering local food production?, providing recommendations for national public management – considering the implementation of the National Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture Program – as well as unpublished data on the potential for food production and its benefits in three Brazilian capital cities – Curitiba, Recife and Rio de Janeiro.

In Curitiba, the capital of the state of Paraná, 96% of the population living in poverty in the municipality (a total of 143,835 people) could be supplied each year with 4,859 tons of food produced in only 5% of the potential areas mapped by the study. This data is part of the analysis of the potential benefits of expanding urban agriculture and the survey of costs in the three case studies. For Recife, fully serving the 348,863 people living in poverty would require occupying 27% of the potential areas mapped. Rio de Janeiro faces a greater challenge, as it has over 1 million people registered in the CadÚnico (the Single Registry used by more than 20 social benefit programmes) as living in a situation of poverty. To fully serve this contingent, it would be necessary to occupy 74% of the mapped idle areas.

Launched on December 5th, while all attentions were focused on the ongoing Climate Conference (COP-28) in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), the study highlights the federal government’s commitment to the food and hunger agenda in a context where the effects of the climate crisis on food production are already being felt.

“Strengthening urban agriculture is a way to generate jobs and income, promote local markets´ resilience in the face of possible supply crises, reduce food waste and expand green areas in towns, which are essential for mitigating the effects of the climate crisis such as heat waves,” explains Jaqueline Ferreira, portfolio manager at Instituto Escolhas in charge of the survey. “And the Federal Government is the entity capable of leading a multi-sector agreement in favor of urban agriculture, encouraging all government levels, as well as public and private institutions and the civil society to include food production in their priority agendas, whether to face the challenge of feeding 27 million hungry Brazilians in cities, or to encourage a new model of healthier and more sustainable urban development,” she concludes.

Developed in partnership with the municipalities of Curitiba, Recife and Rio de Janeiro and with the Cátedra Josué de Castro of Nupens/USP, the survey identified bottlenecks that hinder the consolidation of urban agriculture. Among them is an absence or insufficiency of regulation on production and its characteristics, which means that urban agriculture is not properly included in urban planning. Another problem is that there is little or no knowledge of the areas available for expansion of the production.

The municipality is the administrative unit nearest to the territory where urban and peri-urban agriculture takes place and it is there where the most important resource for the activity is managed: the land. There is no way to encourage a significant increase in food production in cities if the municipality does not consider agriculture as a possible use for urban spaces. “With this in mind, the study also suggests a typology of potential areas for urban agriculture and their possible uses. The federal government can help municipalities surpass concrete obstacles related to land access by developing and implementing this kind of typology. It’s worth remembering that this type of survey, which is fundamental to guide the actions of municipal management, has never been carried out before,” says Jaqueline.

It was based on the wealth of this material that the study arrived at the three recommendations that respond to the question in the title. These are: providing financial resources, mobilizing the society and with guidance, training and disseminating the knowledge about urban agriculture. “By tackling these three points, the federal government should positively and definitively transform the scenario of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the country,” states Ferreira.

Agriculture in the cities

Instituto Escolhas has already published detailed studies on food production in the city of Belém and the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, as well as on the ecosystem services of agriculture in the metropolis. The Institute also surveyed agricultural establishments in eight metropolitan areas and mapped 100 municipal urban agriculture policies across the country. All publications are available to access or download here.