Tropentag, September 20 - 22, 2017 in Bonn "Future Agriculture: Social-ecological transitions and bio-cultural shifts"

Urban Agriculture for Food Security and Income Generation: The Case of Maputo and Cape Town

¹Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Albrecht Daniel Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences (ADTI), Germany
²Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Centre for Rural Development, Germany

Abstract

The international community set the goal “Zero Hunger” as one priority in its global commitment of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Cities are growing fast but economically highly unequal and access to safe and healthy food remains problematic. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most rapidly urbanised region in the world, especially the urban informal areas are growing. In this context, urban agriculture has been a popular response in contributing to income generation and food and nutrition security and has come into the focus of scientific research.

Due to this, this research raises the question of the impact of urban agriculture, related to food security and possible income means for the disadvantaged urban communities in Cape Town and Maputo. Could urban agriculture be a solution to food security especially for cities in the Global South?

To tackle this question, the first representative household survey with urban famers in Maputo has been conducted. In Cape Town a household survey with special focus on smallscale and market garden production as well as information exchange shows up urban gardening activities in different townships. The results of both surveys provide a picture of sociodemographic, socioeconomic, production and knowledge transfer data of urban farmers in both cities and set the base to analyse differences and commonalities.

Even if two realities are found in both cities – a comparative analysis allows to draw up recommendations about the role and meaning of urban agriculture in both cities and therefore to foster the scientific research in this area.

Keywords: Agroecological practices, food and nutrition security, impact, innovation system approach, Southern Africa, urban agriculture

Contact Address: Nicole Paganini, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Albrecht Daniel Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences (ADTI), Invalidenstr. 42, 10099 Berlin, Germany, e-mail: paganinihu-berlin.de