SUSTAINABLE URBAN LIVELIHOOD CHALLENGES : A CASE FOR URBAN AGRO-ECOLOGY IN JOHANNESBURG
Date
2011-03-18
Authors
Bengnwi, Wilfred
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Abstract
The challenges facing major cities like Johannesburg remain huge, amongst these;
rapid urbanization, food insecurity, unemployment, skills and capacity needs,
environmental degradation and waste management. A variety of reasons are believed
to account to the current status quo of urban cities, amongst these: rapid urbanization,
and competing interests for scarce resources. Similar trends of rapid urbanization and
competing resource interest is noticeable across most cities in the world.
For Johannesburg, in the Gauteng city-region for instance, the population is expected
to grow to 14 million inhabitants by 2015, thus putting the region in the top 15 biggest
urban cities in the world (South African Cities Network 2006)
Various evidence suggest cities remain the engines and drivers of national economies
(South African Cities Network 2006), thus making the rationale to focus a large
proportion of relief and development efforts to the most part to major cities is
justifiable.
In this research, urban agro-ecology practice was explored, for its benefits, constrains
and possible solution to the challenges facing urban livelihood in the city of
Johannesburg. By using the Siyakhana food garden, an initiative of the Health
Promotion Unit (HPU), of the University of Witwatersrand located in Bezuidenhout
Park, Central Johannesburg, some light was shed on how urban agro-ecology in
Johannesburg could be used as a tool to mitigate the livelihood challenges of poverty,
unemployment, disease, etc. faced by the Johannesburg metropolis.
Most respondents (87.5% of the sampled population, most of whom stakeholders and
beneficiaries of the Siyakhana food garden), indicated that the benefits of food
gardens, if properly coordinated and if practiced at a sufficient scale has the potential
of invigorating and transforming lives. Amongst some of the benefits enumerated
were fresh food products such as fruits and vegetables, employment opportunities,
skills and capacity development, recreation and research. This category of
respondents cautioned however that for urban agro-ecology to be useful, several
milestones such as proper food production channels and commercialization strategies
for end product needed to be carefully thought off and put in place so as to create
suitable linkages between small subsistence farmers and the bigger firms and food
shops.
Overall the research project suggest a model of urban agro-ecology, one that can
contribute to alleviate the socioeconomic situation of the urban poor and improve
environmental degradation is possible.
Description
MM - P&DM
Keywords
Sustainability, Ecology, Agro-ecology