Environmental Benefits
Cities like Hong Kong face many challenges when it comes to the environment. This includes “air and water quality issues, lack of sufficient green space, excess heat capture, polluted stormwater runoff and lack of ecological biodiversity” (Knizhnik, 2012). Urban farming provides a great opportunity for cities to use vacant land and produce healthy, sustainable food.
Urban gardens are an optimum utilization of idle land. With an increasing population and rapid urbanization, fertile land is dwindling every day. Urban farming is a practical option for the productive use of land available for food. Rooftop gardens, for example, not only take up minimal space, but also provide lots of fresh produce. In addition, this space would otherwise be wasted.
Urban farming is a solution to minimizing our carbon footprint of mass production and distribution of food. Industrial agriculture is a massive source of fossil fuel pollution. Toxic petrochemicals are often used to fertilize and preserve food, and a lot of plastics (which are made from oil) are used to package the foods, which are transported worldwide using gasoline, all of which have detrimental effects on the environment.
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Urban farming minimizes the transport footprint and food miles, "the distance food travels from where it is grown to where it is ultimately purchased or consumed by the end user," by growing them locally, and often uses organic cultivation methods (Clean Air Network). At first glance or thought, urban farming initiatives in small communities may seem like they have little to no impact. However, according to a report by the Arizona State University, “if an urban farming initiative was implemented in every global city, the urban agricultural industry could produce up to 180 million metric tons of food annually” (De Vida, 2019). This is roughly 10% of the earth’s total agricultural output. When food is only grown in rural areas, it needs to be transported from the farm to the packaging facility to supermarkets then to homes of consumers. This has a huge impact on the environment due to the carbon emissions of the vehicles used to transport all these products. This is extremely costly as transportation “contributes to about 5% of all carbon emissions while packaging the foods contributes an additional 7%.” Urban farms allow local produce to be consumed by people living in urban environments. Instead of the need to ship goods over long distances, it may minimize costs that are applied to food. It also saves the resources used when transporting goods from rural farms to city shops.
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Additionally, food waste can also be used for compost in gardening, which is good for the environment as food waste produces a lot of methane and greenhouse gases when thrown into landfills. Through composting, it can be used to fertilize the soil and improve the quality of soil and the plants.
A big part of the culture of urban agriculture is environmental stewardship. Urban farmers understand the ecological costs of their actions and work with sustainable and organic techniques to enrich their soil, rather than using chemicals that are bad for soil biology.
Urban agriculture also improves the air quality of the area. Plants are known to remove carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and release oxygen, which helps the environment and people’s physical health. Moreover, urban farming mitigates the “urban heat island effect”, which is the fact that cities are usually hotter than its surrounding rural and suburban areas. Studies have shown that green rooftops and urban gardens can decrease temperatures.
Urban gardens can also help with water conservation by retaining water and reconstructing underground water tables to catch rainwater runoff that would otherwise be unused. Rainwater tanks can be utilized to collect rainwater from rooftops, which can then be stored and “pumped into the gardens as needed" (Urban Agriculture). Gardens have also been found to be able to improve water infiltration.
Another really important environmental benefit of urban farming is that it increases animal and plant biodiversity. By having more flowers and trees, urban gardens increase the animal count in cities. Insects and animals help with pollination and improve the “overall environmental status” of the city. Urban farms can also “provide refuge for some wildlife while the tree population continues to decrease in specific areas.”
Educational urban gardening programs often emphasize environmental awareness, which is also indirectly benefiting the environment by allowing others to learn and care more about the environmental crisis and encourage sustainable behaviors.
Urban agriculture also provides economic benefits and financial savings by decreasing stormwater runoff, the urban heat-island effect, pest control, and energy costs, which could cost up to 160 billion dollars every year (De Vida, 2019).
Overall, gardening, specifically urban gardening, has numerous benefits to the environment.
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References:
http://urbanagricultureuahs.weebly.com/environmental-benefits.html
https://farmlyplace.com/food-blog-en/3-reasons-why-urban-farming-is-the-future-of-agriculture/
https://www.gouri.info/news-and-info/urban-farming
https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=mes_capstones
https://www.powerhousehydroponics.com/9-important-benefits-of-urban-gardening/
https://www.hongkongcan.org/hk/article/food-miles-facts-eng/