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n both cities agricultural land is publiclyowned. The local farmers have the rightto use it, as long as this use is in line with
the priorities set by the local, municipaland national leadership. But thesepriorities are changing: first theyencouraged the shift from staple foodcrops to vegetables and other perishablecommodities. Vegetable production basesare widespread around Nanjing andHanoi. But presently, many of these sameblocks of farm land, well equipped forintensive horticultural production, areearmarked by the urban planners as part offuture Industrial or ResidentialDevelopment Zones. Their often highlyprofessional, horticultural producers aremade to believe that they are wasting theirtime and should be happy to claim theircompensation and seek urban careers. Thisleads to probably the most widespreadsecondary function of (peri) urban farmersand land managers, next to incomegeneration by producing fresh food andflowers for their urban neighbours:
TAKING CARE OF “WAITING” LANDThis function may suit those farmers well,who lack the ability to make a good livingfrom producing valuable, fresh vegetables,flowers, etc. For them, the main reason forcontinuing using this land is “wait and see”,while they are also try and find their way inthe urban labour market. Wait and see
how much compensation the urbandevelopers are willing to give them.Around Hanoi we see the farmers and theirvillage leaders getting more and moreorganised to negotiate for a fair share ofthe profits that can be made by turningfarmland into urban estates. But some ofthem are just very good market gardenersand find it hard to give up their professionwith the land.
Around Nanjing, the local farmers are,generally speaking, less keen and capablein vegetable production than theircolleagues around Hanoi. They also seemone step ahead in seeking urban careers.Even so, some villages have specialised inhorticultural products for the rapidlygrowing urban market. But here, the actualwork is mostly done by specialists whocame from other parts of the country:“immigrant farmers” who rent the wellequipped plots (with irrigation andtunnelling) from the village governmentfor periods of 3-5 years at the time. At theend of the contract the village governmentcan either make a new tender forprospective horticultural producers, ormake it available for urban development.When we consider the multiple functionsof urban agriculture this “standby”function for urbanisation will always be animportant one, whether we like it or not.While accepting that agriculturalproduction will be “temporary” the landremains in fairly good use.
INDUSTRIAL HORTICULTUREIn the light of this continuous urban
development pressure there is a secondoption: to intensify the horticulturalproduction to such an extent that itbecomes really expensive andcumbersome for urban developers to buyout the producers and clear the land. Theurban developers may leave such modernand intensive vegetable or flowerproduction areas alone for a couple ofyears and instead develop the landimmediately surrounding such a. This wecan also see happening on the outskirts ofboth Nanjing and Hanoi. Some groups ofhorticultural producers are just toosophisticated to be pushed aside like that.They make a very good living from theirhorticultural enterprise, have goodrelations with the village government andhave no reason to give up farming. Theseare the ones that would be better off bycompensation in the form of a new piece ofland to continue and improve theiroperations, than by cash or an urban joboffer. In Hanoi, a few of the local farmersare developing in this direction, forinstance with expensive flowers or specialherbs, which have a price-quality ratio thatmakes them suitable for export throughthe city’s International Airport. Suchproducers become an economic force toreckon with. Around Nanjing, there is lesshope among local producers and policymakers for successfully exporting theexcellent strawberries, flowers,mushrooms, or fresh vegetable to othercities within or outside China. Despite theirproximity to the market these producersare all the time facing competition fromeven cheaper growers in other regions of
7December 2005
Scenarios for PeriurbanHorticulture in Hanoi and Nanjing
_________________
Leo van den Berg
Alterra, Wageningen-UR
Nguyen Vinh Quang
Hanoi Agricultural University
Guo Zhongxing
Nanjing Agricultural University
“Seeking Synergy” is fine, but it ishard to find it. This is what the
‘SEARUSYN’ (“Seeking East AsianRural Urban Synergy”) project in
Hanoi and Nanjing has experiencedover the last 2 years.
ISuoshi, small park in horticultural production area
Leo
van
den
Berg
China, but they manage and their incomefrom horticultural production is betterthan that of unskilled urban workers. Thatis, as long as they exploit their niches andtake good care of potential urban pollutionof their air, soil and water.
GREEN CITIESWhen we confronted various planners atthe district, provincial or national levelwith our findings about the productivecapacity of periurban market gardeners wecertainly met a lot of scepticism. But wealso noticed that urban planners are nolonger taking compact, concentric urbangrowth as their best option. Urbanplanning concepts like ‘satellite towns’ and‘green wedges’ between ‘fingers’ of urbangrowth are now seriously considered inboth cities. If agricultural producers nextto the presently built-up areas are able tomake a good living and maintain apleasant landscape with clean air in theprocess, why should we, urban planners,always push them aside at all costs?.So far, these planners have incorporatedparks and recreational areas in their newurban estates. But because this goes at theexpense of their building targets they tendto keep the amount of urban green spaceto the minimum. After we presented someinspiring examples of combininghorticulture with urban ‘amenity’ fromother parts of the world, this option ofnearby agricultural producers providingthe scenery in which urban residents couldrelax became quite interesting to theseplanners. In both cities they are willing toengage in pilot projects, wherebyperiurban village governments keep andsupport their strongest horticulturalproducers in exchange for two importantadjustments. The first is that theseproducers become aware of the fact thatfrom now on they are also performing this‘amenity function’ for the urban residents.This means that in the process ofindustrialisation of their production theyshould take care of the landscape aspectsof their investments: greenhouses, shedsor barns can be very unattractive, butwhen well designed and fitted into theremaining public space the negativeimpact could be minimised or even turnedinto an asset. Wherever suitable, theproducers could add value by offeringsome of their products – be it fresh orprocessed – for sale, ‘pick-your-own’arrangements, or having an informativedisplay of how these agriculturalcommodities are produced.
The second adjustment is theresponsibility of the village governmentsand involves the recreational quality ofpublic space. They should try and enforcethat the fronts of the agricultural holdingsalong which urban leisure seekers moveare at least pleasant to look at. Of course,the village government can get subsidiesfor planting trees and creating playingfields along pleasant routes for pedestriansand cyclists from the surroundingresidential areas. These are just someexamples of how the symbiosis ofagricultural production and urban amenitycould be strengthened and give thefarmers an additional source of income.
SCENARIOS FOR TWO PILOT AREAS In Nanjing we selected the periurbanvillage of Suoshi as our pilot area.According to the urban development plansthis village is likely to disappear after about10 years, but the village government hasinvested in a fairly successful horticulturalproduction base with strawberries,mushrooms, flowers and vegetables as themain crops. The village also has a pigeonand a dairy unit. Most of the horticulturalproduction is carried out by immigrantfarmers. The Nanjing-Shanghaiexpressway cuts through the village. Thepilot area in Hanoi is Dong Du village,situated next to the Red River dyke and abrand new highway bridge across theriver. At least one branch road is plannedto cut through the village land which isnow used for the production of rice andvegetables. Quite a number of the localfarmers have specialised in the productionof a variety of coriander, for which there isgood export potential. According to thelatest urban development plan no housingor industrial estates are foreseen for theagricultural land that remains aftercompletion of the highway construction.
THE SCENARIOSAfter discussions with the variousproducers, residents and administrators atthe village level about the strengths,weaknesses, opportunities and threats(SWOT analysis) of horticulture theresearch team presented the results toplanners at district and city level. This iswhen we heard that full-scale replacementof horticultural production by urbanhousing and infrastructure is not asunavoidable as the villagers think. Itdepends also on what the villagers andtheir local government want. But thevillage stakeholders are divided among
8 UA-Magazine
themselves, so the researchers developeddifferent scenarios with them. One of thescenarios is to combine a continuation ofspecialised horticultural production withfacilities for recreation and tourism, forboth the residents of the new housingareas surrounding these villages and fortourists from elsewhere who combinetheir trip with buying things on the farmand in the village and with visiting otherplaces of interest in the neighbourhood.This scenario is then compared with otherscenarios, such as full-fledgedurbanisation, ‘panoramic urbanisation”(on the slopes of Suoshi surrounding thehorticultural base) and purely horticulturaldevelopment of a ‘green wedge’ of GreaterHanoi. After these scenario’s werediscussed with the local stakeholders theywere prepared for policy seminars in thetwo cities.
DIALOGUES BETWEEN STAKEHOLDERSWhile assessing the scope for multiplefunctions of urban and periurbanagriculture we discovered many timeshow little the various stakeholders knowabout each other. Each stakeholder tendsto feel responsible for just one function, forwhich a strategy is developed on the shortand on the long run. Without talking toeach other, these stakeholders tend toagree that the complete replacement of theagricultural production function by theurban (residential, commercial,recreational or transport) function is theunavoidable end of the process. And veryfew stakeholders are seriously looking fordeveloping sustainable new sites for themost professional and specialisedhorticultural producers. The mainobjective of our project is to make thesestakeholders aware of the advantages ofcombining rather and replacing thevarious functions of periurban land. So far,it has not been possible to get them alltogether in one room to freely worktowards a joint plan of action. But we havesucceeded in conveying the viewpoints ofthese stakeholders to each other and letthem develop and adjust their own long-term perspectives and courses of action inaccordance with the freedom andlimitations rendered to them by theseother stakeholders. This has so far been aninspiring experience for all and promiseseven more for the future.
For further information, please visitwww.searusyn.org
