Urban farming: No myth, its real

the two most common activities in urban areas, especially the latter (urban agriculture), has proven to be a futile strategy in conditions of mounting poverty.
The existence of urban agriculture in Zimbabwe’s urban landscapes like the issue of land has always been a contested issue. I learnt with repugnance the iterations put forward in the Herald article of November 16, 2011 entitled “Urban Farming a mockery?”
It is the scope of this series to address the concerns put forward in that article and also to justify the raison d’être of urban agriculture. In my previous articles headlined “Let’s embrace urban agriculture and the role of urban agriculture”, I made it crystal clear that urban agriculture is not a remnant of the past that will fade away but is an essential part of the urban system.
It is a well known fact as a nation that our economy is agriculturally based and a rational human being must not be surprised in the proliferation of urban agriculture. In addition, with rising poverty levels in our urban areas in the aftermath of economic meltdown necessitated by the existence of hash economic sanctions, where does one expect the urban poor to get food from? To quote from the old woman of Moldovia, “poverty is pain, it’s a pain generator, it pricks and it causes physical, emotional and spiritual pain”.
This also reminds me of a 76-year-old woman whom I interviewed in Harare, Mabvuku suburb who told me that, “muzukuru ndingave ndachembera zvangu pamuviri asi muromo nedumbu hazvichembei”(I might be old physically by my mouth and stomach still demands food). One wonders, what is driving such an old lady into the open spaces of the city’s scape?
Is it because of leisure, culture or poverty? Inevitably, it is poverty and to them agriculture has come to their rescue. It is not just to criticise urban agriculture on the sole basis of “ecological” concerns as there are a host of factors ranging from economic, environmental, political and social that requests critical attention.
Though I acknowledge that farming in urban areas destroys our ecologically sensitive areas, the question is which land use activities between manufacturing, agriculture or residential housing is causing more harm to the environment more that the other?
We tend to forget that these ecologically sensitive areas are being turned into residential stands and one wonders which one of the two land use activities is dangerous to the sustainability of our urban environments. Take for example the case of Warren Park and Monavale suburbs where houses are sitting on water.
Even the Sunday Mail In Depth of 16-22 May, carried a headline entitled Ecological disaster at Lake Chivero where it was reported that the fish life is at risk due to sewage and industrial effluent at Lake Chivero.
Furthermore, criticising urban agriculture as a rural livelihood is baseless or rather monumental ignorance.
It is this stereotype that needs to be fought hardly against. Why urban areas still need to depend on the rural economy when in fact they should be self reliant (produce for itself). In addition, Zimbabwe being a land locked country does not guarantee that agriculture should be sidelined to rural areas. Even fellow African landlocked countries like Namibia, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Ghana and Tanzania have all embraced urban agriculture despite having rural areas with prime land
Calling for the eradication of urban agriculture in a Murambatsvina kind of way (the visible hand) due to its “perceived” ecological cost, being a rural activity etcetera is wrong and can be likened to one who burns a house because a rat has entered it-you can as well burn down the whole country. Caution must be taken on how best one approach the issue of urban agriculture as always the norm, you can take away a man out of the jungle but you cannot remove the jungle off his head.
Urban planners must prescribe the correct medicine to the correct disease otherwise we end doing what Oliver Mtukudzi sang in his song Handiro Dambudziko, that is,” . . . kushingirira kurapa mhopo kumusana iwe uine ziso rinembonje”(concentrating on treating a watt on your back whilst you have a wounded eye).
As a result, planning is more like a small blanket, if you try to cover the legs, you expose the face and if you try to cover the face, the legs are exposed also. If one takes a bird’s eye view at the resurgence of illegal outbuildings in most parts of the residential areas then will agree with the fact that the visible hand has seen its days in Zimbabwean cities and as a result a new form of planning in the package of accommodative planning backed by homegrown planning legislation is vital.
In other words, planning must be flexible and not rigid and be prepared to adapt to changing urban conditions and demands. We need planners who are pro-poor in their approach to planning because urban areas house both the affluent and the poor. Citing the Regional Town and Country Planning Act as a justification to destroy urban agriculture is actually misplaced. Let alone it is a colonial software which is British oriented.
A new planning legislation that is purely Zimbabwean and that addresses dynamic needs of our societies is what Zimbabwe currently require to address contemporary challenges like urban agriculture.
l Shingai T Kawadza is a final year BSc (Hons) Rural and Urban Planning student at the University of Zimbabwe.