Raising the Ambition of Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Nurturing Urban Agroecology and More-than-Human Health

Chiara Tornaghi

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-41550-0_13

Raising the Ambition of Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Nurturing Urban Agroecology and More-than-Human Health

Chiara Tornaghi

Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

28 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Building on 15 years of research in the field of urban agriculture, this chapter discusses key issues which refrain urban agriculture from achieving its full potential, in terms of human and non-human health, and offers a few pointers for informing policy and practice. First, the author offers a brief overview of how the key challenges of western urbanisation (climate change, people’s health, and the destruction of nature) intersect with urban agriculture, and what promises lay ahead for this rediscovered practice. The second part highlights a number of shortcomings in urban planning policy. In particular it highlights: i) the failure to consider UA as a food-producing practice; ii) the invisibility of soil, and lack of understanding of the role of living soils; iii) the failure to consider the role that soil-cares and food producing specialists (farmers!) can play in advising on healthy public land design and soil management. Part three, discusses how agroecological considerations can deepen and expand the ambition of urban agriculture in public space and bring about more-than-human health. The conclusions offer a summary of the challenges, critical issues, and learning points discussed in the previous three sections, and highlight their connection to the concept of “agroecological urbanism”.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Urban Agriculture in Public Space
Subtitle of host publication	Planning and Designing for Human Flourishing in Northern European Cities and Beyond
Editors	Sirowy Beata, Ruggeri Deni
Publisher	Springer Nature
Chapter	13
Pages	285-309
Number of pages	25
Edition	1
ISBN (Electronic)	978-3-031-41550-0
ISBN (Print)	978-3-031-41549-4, 978-3-031-41552-4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41550-0_13
Publication status	Published - 25 Apr 2024

Publication series

Name	GeoJournal Library
Volume	132

Bibliographical note

This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Funding

The empirical materials upon which this chapter was built were collected through both personal engagement as scholar activist in urban agriculture and urban agroecology practices in the United Kingdom, as well as in a series of research funded projects. These include the ESRC funded project ‘Urban agriculture, social cohesion and environmental justice’ (2011–2013; grant no. 224418), the COST-Action project ‘Urban Agriculture Europe’ (2013–2016), the JPI-Urban Europe, Belmont Forum funded project ‘Urbanising in Place’ (2018–2022; Project number: 11326801 – and funded in the UK by UKRI/ESRC, grant nr. ES/S002251/1), and the Future-Earth funded project ‘Soil Nexus’ (2020–2022). Illustration for the Community Kitchen building block of an agroecological urbanism was funded through the Catalyze 1 project (2020–21), funded by Coventry University. Time for writing this chapter was funded through the ‘Cultivating Public Space’ project, funded by the Research Council of Norway and led by Beata Sirowy.

Funders	Funder number
Economic and Social Research Council	224418
The COST Association
JPI-Urban Europe	11326801
Belmont Forum	11326801
UK Research and Innovation	ES/S002251/1
Future Earth
Coventry University
The Research Council of Norway

Keywords

Urban agroecology
Agroecological urbanism
Planetary health
Public space
Urban agriculture
Biocultural diversity

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-031-41550-0_13Licence: CC BY

Tornaghi2024AAMAccepted author manuscript, 1.64 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

Tornaghi, C. (2024). Raising the Ambition of Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Nurturing Urban Agroecology and More-than-Human Health. In S. Beata, & R. Deni (Eds.), Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Planning and Designing for Human Flourishing in Northern European Cities and Beyond (1 ed., pp. 285-309). (GeoJournal Library; Vol. 132). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41550-0_13

Raising the Ambition of Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Nurturing Urban Agroecology and More-than-Human Health. / Tornaghi, Chiara.
Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Planning and Designing for Human Flourishing in Northern European Cities and Beyond. ed. / Sirowy Beata; Ruggeri Deni. 1. ed. Springer Nature, 2024. p. 285-309 (GeoJournal Library; Vol. 132).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review

Tornaghi, C 2024, Raising the Ambition of Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Nurturing Urban Agroecology and More-than-Human Health. in S Beata & R Deni (eds), Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Planning and Designing for Human Flourishing in Northern European Cities and Beyond. 1 edn, GeoJournal Library, vol. 132, Springer Nature, pp. 285-309. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41550-0_13

Tornaghi C. Raising the Ambition of Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Nurturing Urban Agroecology and More-than-Human Health. In Beata S, Deni R, editors, Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Planning and Designing for Human Flourishing in Northern European Cities and Beyond. 1 ed. Springer Nature. 2024. p. 285-309. (GeoJournal Library). Epub 2024 Apr 23. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-41550-0_13

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