Let’s support urban agriculture

recognition. Instead of anathematising it, cities should fully embrace it, as it has become a reality in the urban landscape. Zimbabwe over the years has largely ignored and viewed urban agriculture as an inconsequential activity in terms of its role to the urban economy and to the sustainable natural resources utilisation and conservation.

However, the situation is gradually shifting with a growing recognition of the importance of urban agriculture in the general performance of the urban economy. If truth be told, urban agricultural practices have long been part and parcel of the urban space, but its incorporation into the urban economy is what is missing in today’s urban planning legislation and national policies. It is worth mentioning that the process of integrating urban agriculture in Zimbabwe had been sluggish regardless its growing essentiality in people’s lives.

A host of countries have responded positively to the challenges posed by urban agriculture by incorporating agriculture it in their national policies and legislation. They have actually delineated zones for agriculture as a permanent form of land use to enhance local food production, local economic development and income generation.
The city of Bogota (Columbia) and Rosario (Argentina), Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania), Maputo (Mozambique), Pretoria (South Africa), Accra (Ghana), Beijing (China) are tangible examples that have incorporated urban agriculture in their respective urban areas. To these cities urban agriculture is viewed as both a medium for empowerment, self-reliance, and sustainable use and management of natural resources.

More so, whenever the country adopts and operationalises international policy agendas like Agenda 21, Millennium Development Goals, sustainable development and the curbing of climate change, urban agriculture should not be sidelined.
In other words it may result in the creation of more sustainable, resilient and inclusive cities. Contemporary focus has been on how the urban planners are to responds to this controversial need that has engulfed most if not all Zimbabwean urban areas. As a result, the time is now ripe for planners to accommodate urban agriculture in design layouts and development plans and this entails legalisation and professionalisation of urban agriculture.

Of late there is no particular piece of planning legislation formulated distinctively for urban agriculture in Zimbabwe. The current planning legislation particularly the Regional Town and Country Planning Act (Chapter 29:12) and the Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27) provisions are all but silent about urban agriculture and are greatly concerned about environmental effects that may arise from such a practice. In the long run legalisation of urban agriculture may not only deliver the social and environmental benefits long publicised by advocates, but it may also be an industry that breeds considerable economic benefits as well as reducing the informal nature of it.

Just like informal vending that have engulfed our major urban centres, local authorities must find ways to accommodate urban agriculture as it has become more than a necessity. But caution must be taken in relation to how accommodating it must be done. As for example, it must be to be conducted in line with the values put across in the preamble of the Regional, Town and Country Planning Act (the country’s planning bible), that is, amenity, order, safety and health promotion.

More so, tapping from the Quito Declaration signed by 40 countries in April 2000 (Ecuador) local governments must show a apparent loyalty to the advancement of urban agriculture, integrate it in municipal or local authority structures, mobilising critical resources and expand it nationwide.

This was also followed by the Harare (2001) Sadc Ministers of Agriculture meeting which identified food shortages in most Sadc countries, ceteris paribus South Africa as presenting a gigantic threat to the attainment of Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development. Subsequent to that observation, the Sadc Ministers of Agriculture agreed to sign a Declaration on 29 August 2003 in support of urban agriculture in the SADC Region.

Be that as it may, one ponders why the country has taken too long to embrace urban agriculture. More so the Resources Centre for Agriculture and Food Security notes that there is a rising awareness of the need for city and local authorities (regional, metropolitan, municipal and other local government institutions directly concerned with urban development) to play a proactive and coordinating role in alleviating urban food security as lamented by various declarations including the ones above.

However, despite the growing hostility that urban agriculture has received in the country, one can find solace due in the fact that a number of cities both in developed and developing countries have stripped away redundant legal restrictions have fully embraced urban agriculture. They have indeed formulated policies that seek to enhance it. It is actually a matter of time before Zimbabwe can copy from what her counterparts are doing around the world.