[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content” content_placement=”middle” css=”.vc_custom_1570470500163{margin-top: 3vh !important;margin-bottom: 40px !important;}” mobile_bg_img_hidden=”no” tablet_bg_img_hidden=”no” woodmart_parallax=”0″ woodmart_gradient_switch=”no” row_reverse_mobile=”0″ row_reverse_tablet=”0″ woodmart_disable_overflow=”0″][vc_column width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1570017798488{padding-top: 8vh !important;padding-bottom: 4vh !important;background-image: url(https://besturbanagriculturebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/bg-agriculture.jpg?id=2860) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}” mobile_bg_img_hidden=”no” tablet_bg_img_hidden=”no” woodmart_parallax=”0″ woodmart_sticky_column=”false” parallax_scroll=”no” mobile_reset_margin=”no” tablet_reset_margin=”no”][vc_single_image image=”2867″ img_size=”full” alignment=”right” scroll_x=”0″ scroll_y=”-40″ scroll_z=”0″ parallax_scroll=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1570123676992{margin-right: -60px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 4vh !important;padding-bottom: 4vh !important;}” el_class=”hidden-xs hidden-sm”][vc_single_image image=”2867″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” scroll_x=”0″ scroll_y=”-40″ scroll_z=”0″ parallax_scroll=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1570123708220{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 4vh !important;padding-bottom: 4vh !important;}” el_class=”hidden-md hidden-lg”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″ scroll_x=”0″ scroll_y=”30″ scroll_z=”0″ parallax_scroll=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1525683911075{padding-top: 5vh !important;padding-right: 15% !important;padding-bottom: 5vh !important;padding-left: 15% !important;}”][woodmart_responsive_text_block font=”alt” size=”custom” font_weight=”400″ color_scheme=”custom” align=”left” css=”.vc_custom_1621351978553{margin-bottom: -5px !important;}” color=”eyJwYXJhbV90eXBlIjoid29vZG1hcnRfY29sb3JwaWNrZXIiLCJjc3NfYXJncyI6eyJjb2xvciI6WyIgLndvb2RtYXJ0LXRleHQtYmxvY2siXX0sInNlbGVjdG9yX2lkIjoiNjBhM2RlMjE3ZGNmZSIsImRhdGEiOnsiZGVza3RvcCI6IiNiNTgzNTIifX0=” woodmart_css_id=”60a3de217dcfe” text_font_size=”eyJwYXJhbV90eXBlIjoid29vZG1hcnRfcmVzcG9uc2l2ZV9zaXplIiwiY3NzX2FyZ3MiOnsiZm9udC1zaXplIjpbIiAud29vZG1hcnQtdGV4dC1ibG9jayJdfSwic2VsZWN0b3JfaWQiOiI2MGEzZGUyMTdkY2ZlIiwiZGF0YSI6eyJkZXNrdG9wIjoiMzZweCIsInRhYmxldCI6IjIycHgiLCJtb2JpbGUiOiIxOHB4In19″ content_width=”100″ inline=”no” woodmart_empty_space=””]Reviews[/woodmart_responsive_text_block][woodmart_responsive_text_block size=”custom” font_weight=”400″ color_scheme=”dark” align=”left” css=”.vc_custom_1570017696077{margin-bottom: 15px !important;}” woodmart_css_id=”5d9491968fcd5″ text_font_size=”eyJwYXJhbV90eXBlIjoid29vZG1hcnRfcmVzcG9uc2l2ZV9zaXplIiwiY3NzX2FyZ3MiOnsiZm9udC1zaXplIjpbIiAud29vZG1hcnQtdGV4dC1ibG9jayJdfSwic2VsZWN0b3JfaWQiOiI1ZDk0OTE5NjhmY2Q1IiwiZGF0YSI6eyJkZXNrdG9wIjoiNTVweCIsInRhYmxldCI6IjM2cHgiLCJtb2JpbGUiOiIyNHB4In19″ content_width=”100″ inline=”no”]Integrated Urban Agriculture[/woodmart_responsive_text_block][woodmart_responsive_text_block size=”custom” font_weight=”400″ color_scheme=”dark” align=”left” css=”.vc_custom_1570017724078{margin-bottom: 15px !important;}” woodmart_css_id=”5d9491a411dfb” text_font_size=”eyJwYXJhbV90eXBlIjoid29vZG1hcnRfcmVzcG9uc2l2ZV9zaXplIiwiY3NzX2FyZ3MiOnsiZm9udC1zaXplIjpbIiAud29vZG1hcnQtdGV4dC1ibG9jayJdfSwic2VsZWN0b3JfaWQiOiI1ZDk0OTFhNDExZGZiIiwiZGF0YSI6eyJkZXNrdG9wIjoiNDhweCIsInRhYmxldCI6IjI4cHgiLCJtb2JpbGUiOiIxOHB4In19″ content_width=”100″ inline=”no”]Precedents, Practices, Prospects[/woodmart_responsive_text_block][woodmart_responsive_text_block font=”text” size=”custom” font_weight=”400″ align=”left” content_width=”80″ css=”.vc_custom_1570466727221{margin-bottom: 25px !important;}” woodmart_css_id=”5d9b6b9d49f12″ text_font_size=”eyJwYXJhbV90eXBlIjoid29vZG1hcnRfcmVzcG9uc2l2ZV9zaXplIiwiY3NzX2FyZ3MiOnsiZm9udC1zaXplIjpbIiAud29vZG1hcnQtdGV4dC1ibG9jayJdfSwic2VsZWN0b3JfaWQiOiI1ZDliNmI5ZDQ5ZjEyIiwiZGF0YSI6eyJkZXNrdG9wIjoiMTRweCIsInRhYmxldCI6IjE0cHgiLCJtb2JpbGUiOiIxNHB4In19″ inline=”no”]In addition to the Table of Contents, Look Inside includes complete listings of the subject headings of all chapters and also topics addressed in the learned commentaries. Other information provided are sample illustrations, books reviewed in the introductory chapter, as well as identification of more than a hundred site-specific projects, plans and proposals discussed in the book.[/woodmart_responsive_text_block][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” mobile_bg_img_hidden=”no” tablet_bg_img_hidden=”no” woodmart_parallax=”0″ woodmart_gradient_switch=”no” row_reverse_mobile=”0″ row_reverse_tablet=”0″ woodmart_disable_overflow=”0″ css=”.vc_custom_1582642037046{border-top-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 5vh !important;padding-bottom: 3vh !important;border-top-color: #f4f4f4 !important;border-top-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/6″ mobile_bg_img_hidden=”no” tablet_bg_img_hidden=”no” woodmart_parallax=”0″ woodmart_sticky_column=”false” parallax_scroll=”no” mobile_reset_margin=”no” tablet_reset_margin=”no”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text text_larger=”no”]Never has such a group of noted urban agriculture scholars been collected together in a single volume.[/vc_column_text][woodmart_responsive_text_block font=”text” size=”small” font_weight=”700″ align=”right” woodmart_css_id=”60a27272dda12″ content_width=”50″ inline=”no”]—Michael Levenston, cityfarmer.info[/woodmart_responsive_text_block][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1582646691623{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text text_larger=”no”]This is an exciting interdisciplinary approach by a well-coordinated, closely working team. The book is accessible, well written, free of jargon, and full of pictures, graphics and charts. In all fairness, this is one of the most exciting and innovative books on urban agriculture I have seen in recent years. It combines original papers and commentary/reflections to them which make it a perfect candidate for class discussions. This volume is as much about imagining urban and urbanism as urban agriculture. In this sense people in social sciences, urban studies, environmental studies, architecture and urban planning will find this book very useful. This is an exceptional international, interdisciplinary, expert dream team. Many of these authors have already been recognized as key contributors to this literature. However, the way the book is designed — as a conversation among a group of scholars, thinkers, authors — allows fresh new insights and adds vibrancy to this volume. It is not a simple how to do UA book. It is a thoughtful book about re-imagining urban living, urban livelihoods, urban culture through urban agriculture. This is a fun book. If I would keep a few books on urban agriculture in my personal library this is definitely one of them. It is the outcome of a workshop and went through many edits and commentaries. It is ready to go. I would consider this as a key contribution to urban agriculture, urban design, planning and agricultural urbanism.[/vc_column_text][woodmart_responsive_text_block font=”text” size=”small” font_weight=”700″ align=”right” woodmart_css_id=”60a2729cb7ab3″ content_width=”50″ inline=”no”]—From an anonymous, expert reviewer of the original manuscript draft[/woodmart_responsive_text_block][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1582646703120{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text text_larger=”no”]An informative and reference-worthy trove of concepts and examples of and recommendations on integrating urban agriculture into the planning and practice of designing our cities. As the title suggests, the focus is on a multidisciplinary and holistic ‘integrated’ urban agriculture, with topics bridging ecosystems, technology, social equity and other diverse and often segregated aspects of urban environments…

There are numerous topics raised by the book that will surely appeal to a wide audience. It is impossible to cover all the things that piqued my interest in this review, but I will touch upon a few that I found particularly relevant and inspiring…The book calls for us to move beyond the site into a system thinking approach: considering the comprehensive food cycle, from inputs to final waste that then becomes input, as well as scale—thereby shifting boundaries related to soils, urban fabric, infrastructure, climate, etc…

While each book contributor lays out various methods and means for integrating urban agriculture into city systems to address and respond to such issues as food security, employment, education, habitat creation, economic opportunity and stormwater mitigation, there is no romanticizing of urban agriculture: it can be polluting, exclusionary, marginalizing and fail to be productive. Just like any constructed landscape—simply because it is ‘green’ doesn’t mean it is sustainable!…

Despite framing the issue of integrating urban agriculture in the city context as a ‘super-wicked’ problem, there are also numerous examples of successful built works described throughout the book, which will inspire many readers. Notably, Robert France’s chapter, ‘Designing Urban Agriculture Forms: History, Education, Proposals and Projects’, raises the question of what design can contribute to the urban agriculture movement (p. 177). His eloquent response is that landscape architects and designers can become catalysts for promulgation and acceptance.

What Integrated Urban Agriculture offers is a comprehensive collection of voices across design, science and social science fields that highlight the complexity of urban agriculture far beyond the simple production of food. I highly recommend this volume that can inspire readers through the many precedents demonstrating the diverse ways food can be produced in the city.

Despite the multidisciplinary panel of contributors and range of topics, the chapters complement each other well, with the commentary providing an additional linkage tying together and further interrogating themes.[/vc_column_text][woodmart_responsive_text_block font=”text” size=”small” font_weight=”700″ align=”right” woodmart_css_id=”60a276f885088″ content_width=”70″ inline=”no” css=”.vc_custom_1621260029735{margin-bottom: 15px !important;}”]—Excerpted from a review by Jessica Ann Diehl in the Journal of Landscape Architecture[/woodmart_responsive_text_block][woodmart_popup shape=”semi-round” align=”right” width=”800″ woodmart_css_id=”5e554303456f6″ title=”For complete review click here” full_width=”no” button_inline=”no” button_smooth_scroll=”no” id=”10″][vc_column_text text_larger=”no”]

From a review in the Journal of Landscape Architecture (17/07/2020) by Jessica Ann Diehl (National University of Singapore)

‘Urban agriculture is not just about growing and eating food in the city. It is also about our re-envisioning our city infrastructure and about community engagement at all levels. Often, it is about social linkages … and, always, it is about human and ecological health’ (p. 244). This is how Karen Landman concludes her chapter ‘Urban Agriculture Linkages: Patterns, Planning and Education’, concisely summarizing the main theme of the volume it is part of: Integrated Urban Agriculture: Precedents, Practices, Prospects, edited by Robert L. France, Professor of Watershed Management at the Faculty of Architecture of Dalhousie University. Long embedded in the Global South as a sustenance necessity, urban and peri-urban agriculture fell outside the purview of urban planners with the rise of the modern city in developed nations. But with climate change and urbanization coupled with threats to urban food security, environmental degradation and rising anomie among urban dwellers, there has been a renewed effort to reintroduce agriculture into the city fabric.

Integrated Urban Agriculture: Precedents, Practices, Prospects brings together twenty-one urban agriculture experts to summarize, expand upon and provoke multidisciplinary discussion on the current and future state of design, development, science and society. It further develops the productive debate that took place in 2010, when the Nova Scotia Agriculture College and the Faculty of Architecture at Dalhousie University jointly convened nine experts across North America for a symposium titled ‘Planning Urban Agriculture Systems for the 21st Century’, to stimulate discussion concerning the practice and emerging scholarship of urban agriculture. Leveraging momentum created by the convening, France invited authors to expand upon and update the concepts originally presented, and further invited additional authors to provide commentary on the enhanced chapters. The result is an informative and reference-worthy trove of concepts and examples of and recommendations on integrating urban agriculture into the planning and practice of designing our cities. As the title suggests, the focus is on a multidisciplinary and holistic ‘integrated’ urban agriculture, with topics bridging ecosystems, technology, social equity and other diverse and often segregated aspects of urban environments.

An important thread weaves its way throughout the book: that agriculture is not new to urban planning and design nor should it be approached as a novel or discrete activity. It further highlights the historical relevance of the role of the landscape architect/architect—with references surfacing in multiple chapters to Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities of Tomorrow, Leberecht Migge’s The Green Manifesto and food self-sufficiency, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City of the 1920s and Le Corbusier’s 1922 Contemporary City Proposal. The oft-voiced justification of ‘excluding’ urban farming in city planning is the issue of health—farms breed disease. But as Luc J. A. Mougeot, a long-time leading voice in urban agriculture research and practice, elaborates in his opening chapter, ‘Reading Urban Gardens and Farms: Literature, Layering and Largesse’, the trend to separate agriculture from city land uses was rooted in the ‘sanitation argument of West European colonial powers … [despite] pathologies and epidemics … [with] their origins more in pollution-prone manufacturing’ (p. 84). From this comment, it is not a big leap to imagine the negative effects of industrial effluents exacerbated by the removal of urban farms with their potential to mitigate some of the polluting outputs. To add to the complexity of understanding the socially constructed framing of ‘dirty’ agriculture, Kathleen Kevany and Derek Lynch respond to Mougeot’s chapter with commentary regarding the issue of gender and the invisibility of women (who comprise a majority in the agriculture labour force)—a consequence of the devaluing of women’s work and labour that does not directly translate to financial capital.

There are numerous topics raised by the book that will surely appeal to a wide audience. It is impossible to cover all the things that piqued my interest in this review, but I will touch upon a few that I found particularly relevant and inspiring from my perspective as an academic with expertise in social aspects of urban farming and who teaches a community-based productive landscape studio. The first item, and most important conceptually, is the underlying and explicit framing of urban agriculture as embedded in a food ‘system’. The book calls for us to move beyond the site into a system thinking approach: considering the comprehensive food cycle, from inputs to final waste that then becomes input, as well as scale—thereby shifting boundaries related to soils, urban fabric, infrastructure, climate, et cetera. Aligned with this is the challenge to cities to address urban agriculture as an important component of urban ‘infrastructure’. While each book contributor lays out various methods and means for integrating urban agriculture into city systems to address and respond to such issues as food security, employment, education, habitat creation, economic opportunity and stormwater mitigation, there is no romanticizing of urban agriculture: it can be polluting, exclusionary, marginalizing and fail to be productive. Just like any constructed landscape—simply because it is ‘green’ doesn’t mean it is sustainable!

This brings us to an essential point raised by Mark Gorgolewski, June Komisar and Joe Nasr in their chapter ‘Resilient City = Carrot City: Urban Agriculture Theories and Designs’. They begin the chapter with an introduction of contemporary urban challenges that are not easily solved and can be defined as ‘wicked problems’. We are familiar with the concept of wicked problems, as design in and of itself is a wicked problem: lacking a fixed issue or origin and having multiple solutions. Gorgolewski, Komisar and Nasr state that climate change and food insecurity (related to urban agriculture) are ‘superwicked’ problems because those trying to solve these problems are also the people causing the problem (p. 257). They propose that a resilient city is a productive city—an idea familiar to those who have read their book Carrot City: Creating Places for Urban Agriculture—based on services other than (but also including) food production that urban agriculture can provide, such as stormwater mitigation, building energy reduction and soil remediation. Through transect thinking, productive landscapes can be designed to combine form and function in a way that best fits the urban gradient from city centre to rural edge, small to large scale, as well as temporal to permanent timeframes. This chapter, which focuses on the growing role of urban design in increasing the visibility and site suitability of urban agriculture, is a great companion to Carrot City, which catalogues built and theoretical design projects featuring urban agriculture landscapes.

Despite framing the issue of integrating urban agriculture in the city context as a ‘super-wicked’ problem, there are also numerous examples of successful built works described throughout the book, which will inspire many readers. Notably, Robert France’s chapter, ‘Designing Urban Agriculture Forms: History, Education, Proposals and Projects’, raises the question of what design can contribute to the urban agriculture movement (p. 177). His eloquent response is that landscape architects and designers can become catalysts for promulgation and acceptance—that beautification can manifest through even small interventions and design elements. This sentiment is echoed in the final chapter, a commentary by Jennifer Cockrall-King, in response to Nevin Cohen’s chapter ‘Urban Agriculture as a Response to the Great Recession’, aptly titled ‘Will it Last? Questions Regarding the Staying Power of Urban Agriculture’. Cockrall-King states, ‘While Cohen focuses primarily on the more concrete responses to urban agriculture, I’d like to stress the importance of the shifts in social values that have also taken place’ (p. 356). She emphasizes that ideological shifts are just as important as structural shifts. And ideological shifts happen when people have positive experiences in a space. For example, at one point in the book, there is a comparison to the High Line’s plant selection and arrangement, proposed by Piet Oudolf, which exposed park users to what could have been taken as messy, overgrown landscapes, but has become a place cherished for its celebration of the process of growth, blossoming, dieback and germination. The integration of urban agriculture into our city landscape requires a diverse range of technical, scientific, planning, horticultural and social expertise to be feasible and sustainable. But it also requires urban citizens to accept and value it as part of their urban existence. And that is precisely where landscape architects can intervene by designing beautiful, functional, ever-changing and adaptable productive landscapes.

In summary, there has been a notable surge in urban agriculture research and built works over the last two decades as urban policymakers increasingly adopt it as a legitimate urban activity. The visibility of successful installations including community gardens, food forests, small-scale urban farms, farm-to-table businesses and edible rooftop gardens have mainstreamed what had been relegated to a fringe activity. What Integrated Urban Agriculture offers is a comprehensive collection of voices across design, science and social science fields that highlight the complexity of urban agriculture far beyond the simple production of food. I highly recommend this volume that can inspire readers through the many precedents demonstrating the diverse ways food can be produced in the city; guide with its offering of tools, policy examples and recommendations for multiple stakeholders; and provoke critical discussion on how urban agriculture is embedded across scales of urban environmental, social, economic and infrastructure systems enacting positive and negative (often both) consequences—the ‘super-wicked’ problem. And, despite the multidisciplinary panel of contributors and range of topics, the chapters complement each other well, with the commentary providing an additional linkage tying together and further interrogating themes. This review concludes by echoing the final commentary by Cockrall-King, who closes the book with a reflective and optimistic view for the future: ‘Perhaps the next question for academics, historians and writers will be: Why didn’t we, for a period [spanning the last few generations], grow food in cities?’ (p. 357).[/vc_column_text][/woodmart_popup][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][/vc_row]