Position Paper:

Urban Agriculture in the City of

Cape Town

Gareth Haysom: Sustainability Institute

City of Cape Town Presentation
22 January 2009
 Food Provision and Nutritional
Security
• The world food situation is being rapidly redefined by
new driving forces. Changes in food availability, rising
commodity prices and new producer-consumer linkages
have crucial implications for the livelihoods of poor and
food-insecure people (Von Braun, 2007)
• What are the implications for food security within the
urban context?
• How should the City of Cape Town approach Urban
Agriculture?
• Is the current approach sufficient to address changing
food environment?
Future Urbanisation

Most of the urbanisation that will exist in 2030 has not

yet occurred. Urban pop. of developing nations will
double by 2030 at which time…
time
60% of the world’s people will be urbanites
Swilling, M. 2007
Source: York Times Almanac 2004
 Key UA Questions
• What is required for a city to effectively
support its residents in their ability to access
healthy, nutritious, local food.
• What is necessary for this to be done in a
manner that enhances social justice,
ecological services and a city’s effective
functioning, and in so doing, supports the
objectives of sustainable development?
 What is Urban Agriculture??
• Urban gardening and livestock keeping are
merely ‘hang-overs’ of rural habits
• A marginal activity of little economic
importance,
• Health risk and a source of pollution that has
to be curtailed
• Primarily an economic activity and is not a
critical function within the urban form
 Food and Cape Towns Ecological
Footprint
• Gasson’s (2002) ecological footprint estimate
for Cape Town resulted in a total ecological
footprint of 128,264 square kilometres –
• of which the large majority (112,349 square
kilometers [or 87 percent]) is food related*

* Swilling, M. 2006
 Food and Cape Towns Ecological
Footprint
• Between 40 and 60 per cent of the domestic
waste stream is organic waste – currently goes
to landfill
• 1.3 million tonnes of food are imported ...
middle- and high-income households may be
able to afford prices that include the cost of
transporting all this food (fuel, cold storage,
packaging, energy, etc.), but this is certainly
not the case for poor household
* Swilling, M. 2006
 Food and Cape Towns Ecological
Footprint
Applying the internationally recognised norm of 0.4
hectares of arable land to feed a person ...
• Food needs for Cape Town, using the 2006
population figures of 3 240 000 (PGWC, 2006),
means Cape Town requires 1.3 million hectares to
sustain its population.
• - 9.2 percent of South Africa’s arable land.
• Food plays a vital role in broader sustainability
issues and food production is seen as a key element
within future strategies in terms of footprint
reduction - but also social justice and ecological
sustainability.
 City of Cape Town UA Policy
• Dual approach to urban agriculture
– focusing on achieving household food security
(poverty alleviation and improved nutrition
– creation of income (economic development)
• Developing an integrated and holistic
approach for the effective and meaningful
development of urban agriculture in the CoCT
• A prosperous and growing urban agricultural
sector
CoCT 2007
 City of Cape Town UA Policy
• The need to elevate the status of UA within the City of Cape
Town has been articulated within the City’s Urban Agriculture
Policy, but the question remains how?
• In order to improve and make urban agriculture more
sustainable it is necessary to give it a formal status. This will
be done through the inclusion of urban agriculture as a
multifunctional component in municipal land planning and
standard development processes concerning land use and
environmental protection, i.e. land use plans, zoning schemes
and site development plans should provide for urban
agricultural activities (CoCT, 2007). – is the taking place and
what processes have been initiated to activate this statement.
 Urban Agricultural Policy
• It is incorrect to assume that urban agriculture is
carried out for solely economic activities.
• Urban agriculture is, however, an indicator of
alternative economies taking place within the
communities.
• Urban agriculture is carried out, often directly
related to nutritional security needs and for this
reason is often not considered within the generalised
planning and operational processes within the
settlement governance structures
Urban Food Security in Developing
Countries
• In Harare, sixty percent of food consumed by low-income
groups was self-produced. In Kampala, children aged five
years or less in low-income farming households were found
to be significantly better-off nutritionally (less stunted)
than counterparts in non-farming households. Urban
producers obtained 40 to 60 percent or more of their
household food needs from their own urban garden. In
Cagayan de Oro, urban farmers generally eat more
vegetables than non-urban farmers of the same wealth
class, and also more than consumers from a higher wealth
class (who consume more meat).

Potutan et al.1999
Food Security, Dietary Intake, and
Nutritional Status

Adapted from UNICEF (1990)

 Urban Agriculture Policies
• Integration in urban Land Use Planning ?
• Inclusion of agriculture in urban food security
policies ?
• Integration of agriculture in the urban
environmental policies ?
• Integration of agriculture in urban health policies ?
• Urban Agriculture is a component within the urban
planning processes that, if correctly implemented,
can assist in addressing a variety of the urban
planning and developmental challenges
 Knowledge and Data is of Critical
Importance
• Available land - this needs to be reviewed from the perspective of a far
wider programme that would involve the coordination of data sets from a
number of agencies, including state owned enterprises (SOEs), regional
bodies and urban agencies
• Need to audit, from a perspective of urban agriculture, the availability
and suitability of urban and regional land, land that may not be used for
other purposes, commonage, current parks and green spaces that cannot
be maintained (or are currently unsafe), water courses and rainwater
holding facilities, school and other institutional grounds and disputed
land held in “trust” by the settlement, etc.
• It is believed that there are many more areas which could be identified as
being suitable to UA such as in waste treatment plants and other such
areas
 Contextual Analysis
• Types of products
• Types of economic activities
• Types of location
• Scales of production and technology used
• Product destination / degree of market orientation
• Types of actors involved