A cultivated idea for cities

Urban agriculture, the practice of growing farm products in cities and their outskirts (peri-urban areas), has not received the attention it merits. Commonly consumed but high-priced farm products, such as vegetables, fruit, flowers, milk, eggs, mushrooms, and fish, can easily be produced in urban and semi-urban areas. Residential dwellings even in densely populated cities have roofs, terraces, balconies, and walls, which can be used for growing plants. While roof-top gardening, involving the growing of ornamental, medicinal, or other kinds of plants in pots or other containers, is already a popular hobby among many urbanites, some new and innovative ways of cultivating plants in a limited space have opened up the way to transform this pastime into agri-business. These systems include vertical farming (stacking layers of plants vertically), greenhouse agriculture (protected cultivation in polythene enclosures), aeroponics (agriculture without soil), and hydroponics (nurturing plants in water solution). Even those living in flats in megacities can produce agricultural products for self-consumption or marketing through these techniques. Activities like rearing small milch animals, poultry, piggery, and bee-keeping are also among the farm activities that can conveniently be taken up in and around cities.

In many countries, the concept of urban and peri-urban agriculture has become an integral part of modern town planning because of its salubrious impact on the environment, apart from economic and other benefits. The commonly followed norm is to keep about 10 per cent land in cities for developing green patches, some of which could be devoted to growing vegetables and fruit. Urban civic bodies, as also community organisations, are encouraging the cultivation of farm products in public and private land. In India, unfortunately, neither urban nor rural planning addresses this vital issue, notwithstanding the fact that this form of plant husbandry is now a necessity to combat pollution. Increased greenery around cities, whether in the form of trees, shrubs, or other plants, is crucial to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and reduce the overall carbon footprint of urban living. Besides, the presence of decorative foliage and trees in the exteriors of houses, gardens, and along the roadsides adds to the beautification of cities.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is promoting urban and peri-urban farming under its various programmes to boost food and nutritional security. This global body is also fostering joint ventures involving different stakeholders, including national and international agencies, civil society, academia, and private entrepreneurs in this drive.

India can be deemed a laggard in systematic urban farming though people have traditionally been growing useful plants on terraces or in kitchen gardens at individual level. The first serious bid to promote urban agriculture on an organised scale was made in the early 2010s on the recommendation of the then Planning Commission’s working group on horticulture, set up for formulating the 12th five-year plan (2012-17). The group had stressed the need for producing fruit, vegetables, and other crops around cities to meet local needs and, more importantly, for environmental services and health care. Consequently, a Central sector scheme was launched in 2011-12 to set up urban clusters for producing vegetables and fruit around mega cities with the twin objectives of ensuring adequate supplies to consumers and creating opportunities for employment and income.

Of late, farming in the peripheries of big cities has received some impetus, thanks to the growing awareness of the need to recycle and reuse wastewater for crop irrigation and other purposes. Such ventures, based on treated wastewater, have come up around several big, medium, and small towns. The civic bodies of several metropolitan cities have begun offering incentives for cultivating vegetables and other crops in peripheral areas, using recycled water. Most towns located on the banks of rivers have, in any case, been traditionally allowing crop cultivation in the floodplain zones of the rivers during pre- and post-monsoon periods. Crop yields in these tracts are usually high because of the better fertility of the soil, which gets enriched with silt every year, and the copious availability of residual soil moisture.

The latest notable initiative to promote growing useful plants in a metro city is the recently announced urban farming project of the Delhi government. This programme, to be taken up with the help of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), involves training citizens to produce vegetables and fruit for self-consumption and sale. Announced as part of the “Rozgar budget” of Delhi, this project is anticipated to generate about 25,000 green jobs in the next five years. About 400 awareness workshops and 600 entrepreneurship training sessions are being planned to be organised. A large number of kits containing seeds, organic manure, and bio-fertilisers would be distributed to households interested in taking up such farming. Though the success of this project would depend on how efficiently it is implemented, prima facie it seems worth replicating in other towns as well.

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