TY - JOUR
T1 - The multifunctionality of urban farming
T2 - perceived benefits for neighbourhood improvement
AU - Poulsen, Melissa N.
AU - Neff, Roni A.
AU - Winch, Peter J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding for this research came from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future-Lerner Fellowship and a graduate fellowship from the Johns Hopkins Environment, Energy, Sustainability, and Health Institute. We thank Marie Spiker and Nestor Mojica for their contributions to this research, and the anonymous reviewers for their recommendations to strengthen the paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2017/11/2
Y1 - 2017/11/2
N2 - Urban farming–a type of urban agriculture focused on entrepreneurial food production–serves multiple functions in neighbourhoods; yet these are not well delineated. Expectations for urban farming often centre on traditional measures of economic development, potentially overlooking other benefits. Through a qualitative case study conducted in Baltimore, Maryland, we sought to understand community perceptions regarding the ways in which urban farms can benefit cities. Interviews with residents, neighbourhood leaders, and urban farmers in three residential neighbourhoods with urban farms revealed the pathways by which community members view farms as improving neighbourhoods. Benefits stemmed from four primary changes urban farms made to study neighbourhoods: creation of public projects welcoming involvement, physical improvement of degraded space, production of local food, and creation of new businesses. These changes led to multiple perceived benefits including increased social connectedness, a transformed physical landscape, improved neighbourhood reputation, increased access to fresh produce, and educational, youth development, and employment opportunities. Our findings demonstrate the importance of a multifunctional paradigm that accounts for social and educational functions in assessing the value of urban farming and bring empirical evidence to the concept of multifunctional agriculture. Urban farms with strong social aims may appear to contribute little to economic development if measured using traditional indicators of success such as job creation or fiscal impacts, but provide numerous other benefits for community development.
AB - Urban farming–a type of urban agriculture focused on entrepreneurial food production–serves multiple functions in neighbourhoods; yet these are not well delineated. Expectations for urban farming often centre on traditional measures of economic development, potentially overlooking other benefits. Through a qualitative case study conducted in Baltimore, Maryland, we sought to understand community perceptions regarding the ways in which urban farms can benefit cities. Interviews with residents, neighbourhood leaders, and urban farmers in three residential neighbourhoods with urban farms revealed the pathways by which community members view farms as improving neighbourhoods. Benefits stemmed from four primary changes urban farms made to study neighbourhoods: creation of public projects welcoming involvement, physical improvement of degraded space, production of local food, and creation of new businesses. These changes led to multiple perceived benefits including increased social connectedness, a transformed physical landscape, improved neighbourhood reputation, increased access to fresh produce, and educational, youth development, and employment opportunities. Our findings demonstrate the importance of a multifunctional paradigm that accounts for social and educational functions in assessing the value of urban farming and bring empirical evidence to the concept of multifunctional agriculture. Urban farms with strong social aims may appear to contribute little to economic development if measured using traditional indicators of success such as job creation or fiscal impacts, but provide numerous other benefits for community development.
KW - Multifunctional agriculture
KW - qualitative methods
KW - urban agriculture
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U2 - 10.1080/13549839.2017.1357686
DO - 10.1080/13549839.2017.1357686
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85026375489
VL - 22
SP - 1411
EP - 1427
JO - Local Environment
JF - Local Environment
SN - 1354-9839
IS - 11
ER -