مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد نقش باغچه های پشت خانه در منظره شهری – الزویر 2018

Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) is a well-researched landscape component, but there is a need to extend the quantitative database on West Africa as well as to explain how UPA contributes to food systems differently across locations. We therefore performed a quantitative survey of Tamale, Ghana, and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, using a spatially randomised sampling frame to identify farms in peri-urban villages, open-space farming zones and isolated spaces. This was complemented with focus group discussion data. After preliminary analysis, further interviews were performed to explain trends observed. Rainy season production dominated in both cities. In Ouagadougou, commercial production was concentrated in open-space farming sites, whereas in Tamale it was more dispersed, with isolated space farms playing an unexpectedly important market role. This was attributed to Tamale’s recent rapid expansion, combined with more relaxed planning implementation and a permissive legislative context. In both cities, leafy vegetables were important commercial crops. Irrigation and soil fertility management were areas where resource use efficiency could be improved. Untreated well water was a major irrigation source in Ouagadougou, as was potable water in Tamale, raising queries over sustainability. Inorganic fertiliser use was more common in Tamale than Ouagadougou, and the opposite was the case for compost and manure, ascribed to the existence of manure markets in Ouagadougou. Urban agriculture’s contribution to urban food systems is thus shaped by its historical and geographical context. Attention to planning trajectories, irrigation and soil fertility management issues could help it contribute further.

Introduction

Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) plays a unique and important role in urban food systems. Farmers use spaces in urban and peri-urban landscapes to provide themselves and others with food, whilst gaining income from sales (Dubbeling, Canton Campbell, Hoekstra, & van Veenhuizen, 2009). The opportunities and risks presented by UPA provide important considerations for planners and policy makers. It enjoys good access to inputs, including agrochemicals, organic wastes (Lee-Smith, 2013) and municipal and wastewater supplies (Tixier & Bon, 2006). Relatively affluent output markets demand a wide range of goods (Mawoisa, Aubry, & Le Bail, 2011). Yet it also competes with other urban land uses and industries for resources such as land, water and crop residues (Naab, Dinye, & Kasanga, 2013) and consumers and city authorities express health concerns over waste reuse (Mougeot, 2000). Some settings have legislative barriers (Cissé, Gueye Ndèye, & Sy, 2005) and resource use efficiencies are often low. There is an abundance of academic and ‘grey’ literature on UPA as a general phenomenon. Yet the factors above interact to shape UPA in diverse ways across landscapes. Backyard gardening may exist alongside opportunistic cropping on interstitial spaces. Meanwhile, several farmers may cultivate simultaneously on contiguous fields within larger, open-space, tracts of land (Drechsel et al. 2006). Peri-urban settlements can resemble rural villages, but have access to urban markets, meeting Mougeot’s (2000) definition of UPA. This paper focuses on food crop farming, a common form in the study area (an exploration of livestock production in the study cities appears in Roessler et al. (2016)), but UPA can also include livestock raising, agroforestry, ornamental horticulture and mixed production systems. These forms manifest to varying extents between locations, and their functions within urban livelihoods vary. Papers on African UPA have hitherto mainly focused on open-space farming sites, characterising them as the locus of commercial production (Drechsel, Graefe, Sonou, & Cofie, 2006; Memon and Lee-Smith, 1993).