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Ver$cal farming and the development of sustainable and just urban food systems
Ir. Henk de Zeeuw, RUAF Founda$on
AVF-‐RUAF-‐IEDA Ver-cal Farming Summit 9-‐10 May 2015, Beijing
RUAF FOUNDATION • A not-‐for-‐profit center of exper$se on urban agriculture
• Established by 8 interna$onal Resource centers on Urban Agriculture and Food security in 1998.
• Opera$ng in 20 countries (South and North) • Aiming to facilitate the development of sustainable,
resilient and socially just urban food systems • By (together with local stakeholders): • Mapping and analyzing urban food systems • Advising local authori$es on urban food policies • Analyzing and diffusing innova$ons in urban
agriculture (publica$ons, journal, database, website) • Facilita$ng local innova$ve research and
development projects
Ver$cal farming and the development of sustainable and just urban food systems
How to understand: “urban food system”?
UN-‐FAO (2014): • The complex set of actors, linkages and processes • related to food produc$on, processing, market-‐ing,
consump$on and related input provision, wastes management and support services
• in a given geographical region, including one main or several smaller urban cen-‐tre(s) and surrounding peri-‐urban and rural areas
City region food system
City region food system
Some criteria for a sustainable and just urban food system
• Secured access to affordable, nutri$ous and safe food for all ci$zens
• A vibrant and economically sustainable local food economy
• The urban food system is more resilient (resistant to shocks / less dependent on far away food sources)
• The ecological foot print of the urban food system is minimized
• Urban organic wastes, wastewater, excess heat, CO2, by-‐products,…, are used as resources in local food produc$on
• Urban agriculture is widely used to create be^er urban living condi$ons
How to understand “ver-cal farming”?
• Some tendencies that -‐in my view-‐ need to be corrected: -‐ Urban agriculture is not just ver$cal farming (pictures) -‐ Ver$cal farming is not just very advanced semi-‐closed and closed systems (pictures)
-‐ Urban farming is not just plant produc$on
• Each type of urban agriculture has its own contribu$ons to the development of sustainable and just urban food systems
• Mass food produc$on is not the only func$on of urban agriculture
• Policy makers need to give proper a^en$on to all types of urban and ver$cal farming and not put its eggs all in one basket (high tech indoor farming) (Jing di zhi wa)
Comparison of two types of urban agriculture in the light of the
development of sustainable food systems
• Open air urban agriculture
• Fully closed indoor plant produc$on
1. Open air urban agriculture
Is part of urban green infrastructure: interconnected green zones and corridors in and around city centre(s)
• Variety of fresh vegetables, fruits
and other perishable food items • Mul$-‐func$onal land use:
combina$on with recrea$on, water-‐ and landscape-‐ management , biodiversity
• Eco-‐services: reducing urban heat, capturing CO2 and dust, storm water infiltra$on, reuse of urban organic wastes and wastewater, soil remedia$on
• Social func$ons: community building; improving access of urban poor to food and income
• Mainly family farms, SME’s, social entreprises
• Short & alterna$ve food chains (producers to consumers)
• Low to medium output; • Oeen high land pressure
• Closed environment; advanced technology: led lights, climate control, circular resource flows, automa$on/ organic engineering systems
• Mass produc$on of few products with uniform standard quality
• Lower resource use per unit of output: land, water, fer$lizers, pes$cides
• High energy use and related CO2 emissions
• High ini$al investment • Mainly large entreprises; increasing dominance in urban food system
• Risk of social exclusion (small farmers, SMEs, poor urban consumers)
2. indoor farming
Conflict or synergy? • Largely separated working
spheres; Oeen mutually nega$ve images
• Both approaches are needed to build sustainable & resilient urban food systems: in urban food systems land sparing innova$on complements land sharing innova$on
• More interac$on and coopera$on is needed between actors in both spheres
• City authories to lead the design of a comprehensive agro-‐food policy in the city region with mul$-‐stakeholder involvement
Challenges for advanced ver-cal farming 1. Further dras-c reduc-on of energy use (to reduce produc$on costs and reduce related green house gas emissions); – For now: Preference for systems that (also) use sunlight (un$l ….)
– Further innova$on in energy efficiency: LED light efficiency, use of geothermal energy; underground storage of excess heat/cold for later use; adap$ng climate management to plant processes: use of outdoor air for cooling and reduc$on of humidity (rather than aircon$oning), an$-‐reflec$ve glass coa$ng, etcetera).
2. Integra-on with the urban metabolism: • Use of urban “wastes” as resources in food produc$on: – Methane from landfills or biogasdigestors of organic wastes to generate energy and heat for greenhouses / plant factories
– Use of excess heat, CO2 and cooling water from nearby industry
– Collec$on of rainwater from surrounding roofs; – Recovery of nutrients from urban organic wastes and urine to replace chemical fer$lizers
– Realizing synergies by interconnec$ng plant produc$on with other types of urban farming (fish, poultry, mushrooms, algae, …)
3. Preven-on of social exclusion: – Changes in the business models and the organisa$on of the food chain in order to enhance access of all ci$zens to nutri$ous food at affordable prices and to enable par$cipa$on of small scale and medium entreprises.
– Prevent compe$on with exis$ng vegetable growers in the city region. Focus plant factories at “out of season” products and products that can not be produced in the city region otherwise?.
– Also government support for SME’s and social entreprises engaging in (small and medium scale) ver$cal farming
– Facilita$ng coopera$on (e.g. contract farming, joint marke$ng arrangements, technical support) between larger entreprises and small farmers willing/able to engage in ver$cal farming
4. Adapta-on of urban land use planning and building regula-ons – Clear urban food policy (prepared with ci$zen involvement): what kinds of urban agriculture we want, where and why?
– Adapta$on of building regula$ons and zoning regula$ons to enable ver$cal farming on/in exis$ng and new buildings whilst preven$ng nega$ve impacts and conflicts of interest.
– Clear norms / targets regarding resource use efficiency, total GhG emission, use of renewable energy sources, etcetera
– For now: Give priority to retrofimng of abandoned factories and offices for indoor farming
– Get real estate companies and social housing coopera$ons more coopera$ve (mutual interest; social responsibility)
THANK YOU E-‐mail: [email protected] Website: www.ruaf.org
various forms of urban hor$culture (back)
Various types of rooeop hor$culture (pictures)
CITYFOOD: Linking Ci-es on Urban Agriculture and Urban Food Systems Joint ICLEI / RUAF ini-a-ve: • City hub: Ci$es present on line
their urban food policies and ac$ons and their results
• Community of Prac-ce: Prac$$oners share best prac$ces and mutually assist in problem solving
• On line Compendium: fact sheets, business models, guidelines and tools
• Training and technical support services
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