Urban agriculture in the Gauteng City-Region’s green infrastructure network
Date
2020-07
Authors
Camargo Nino, Eliana
Lane, Sam
Okano, Kanako
Rahman, Irvanu
Peng, Bo
Benn, Hannah
Culwick Fatti, Christina
Maree, Gillian
Khanyile, Samkelisiwe
Washbourne, Dr Carla
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Gauteng City-Region Observatory
Abstract
As cities in developing countries contend with the
challenges of urbanisation, they need to rethink the
traditional modes of urban planning and development.
Part of this logic is to cater for growing populations
without compromising urban environments and
social development. Green infrastructure is one such
approach that aims to meet infrastructure and service
needs while ensuring the proper functioning of natural
ecological systems. Urban agriculture can create
multifunctional green assets in the form of urban
farms and food gardens. When planned accordingly,
urban agriculture can contribute to addressing a range
of issues in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR). In the City
of Johannesburg, the expansion of urban agriculture,
and green infrastructure more broadly, aligns with and
could contribute to multiple development goals.
This paper interrogates whether a green
infrastructure approach could offer the potential to
improve urban agriculture efforts if the approach
can be mainstreamed into municipal development
processes. Realising the benefits of urban agriculture
hinges on integrating these approaches into municipal
planning and projects, as well as on improving the
productivity of ecosystem service delivery from both
green infrastructure and urban agriculture. The
focus of this report is pertinent in light of persistent
infrastructure and service delivery backlogs in the
GCR, considerable challenges around food systems
and food security, and a highly unequal urban
spatial form – all of which impact the distribution
of infrastructure and services, both green and
conventional. This report argues that a green
infrastructure approach is valuable for drawing
important connections between focus areas related
to urban agriculture that are traditionally siloed.
The analysis focuses on urban agriculture in the
GCR’s green infrastructure network using urban food
gardens in the City of Johannesburg as the unit and
site of analysis.
This occasional paper falls under the Gauteng
City-Region Observatory (GCRO) Green Assets and
Infrastructure research and links urban agriculture
and green infrastructure in the GCR together for
two main reasons. First, the paper outlines how food
gardens are a key component of the interconnected
set of the natural and constructed infrastructure
systems within the city. This framing helps to link
urban agriculture and food systems research to
broader municipal development goals in terms of
infrastructure and service delivery. Second, the
paper outlines evidence of the wider social impact
of food gardens which validates the ability of green
infrastructure to meet social, economic and public
health goals (e.g. social cohesion, employment,
economic resilience) beyond a purely environmental
focus. Understanding food gardens as multifunctional
green assets is one way to promote and secure
investment in urban agriculture in the GCR.
Description
Keywords
Urban agriculture, green infrastructure, Gauteng
Citation
Camargo Nino, E., Lane, S., Okano, K., Rahman, I., Peng, B., Benn, H., Culwick Fatti, C., Maree, G., Khanyile, S. & Washbourne, C. Dr.:Urban agriculture in the Gauteng City-Region’s green infrastructure network. GCRO Occasional Paper 14, July 2020