Many cities around the world have adopted urban farming as a genuine tool for communicating with and educating citizens. Community allotments are used to improve social wellbeing, for the integration of the most marginalised groups — such as intercultural gardens — for the care of people with mental illness, but also to contribute to the development of urban biodiversity, to generate a healthier microclimate and to ensure better food quality and combat climate change.

Urban farming nourishes people and saves the environment, bringing citizens closer to rural reality and raising awareness among the youngest about the culture of genuine, local food. The city and its citizens suffer from an unnatural distance from nature, which is why forms of rejection of food globalisation and urbanisation are becoming increasingly widespread. Here is a list of sustainable and useful practices for eating healthily.

Urban farming

With urban farming it is possible to produce and distribute food within the city. In some cases, livestock rearing is even involved, but horticulture is far more widespread, being simpler and better suited to the urban environment. You can start with a few crops on the balcony, but it is a short step from there to transforming entire condominium rooftops into genuine rooftop gardens. Urban farming is a sustainable practice for ensuring quality food for the urban consumer and also an enjoyable pastime.

Civic agriculture

Civic agriculture is a kind of evolution of urban farming in that it involves communities and citizens in producing food using innovative methods and marketing it through organic markets. Civic agriculture is based on sustainable social, economic and environmental practices carried out in small- and medium-scale farming enterprises that are closely integrated with the local area. In the city, civic agriculture takes the form of shared allotments which, managed by social cooperatives, cultivate portions of urban land made available to them by public bodies.

Guerrilla gardening

Guerrilla gardening is a politicised form of urban farming, a non-violent action by environmentalists. Through this practice, activists sow plants, flowers and food crops of various kinds in flowerbeds and public parks within the city in order to fight for land rights.

Permaculture

Permaculture techniques share with other urban farming practices the ethics and social responsibility of their agricultural activities, aimed at caring for the land and producing resources intended for fair distribution. Permaculture activities in an urban context create food self-sufficiency projects by reintroducing food production into city areas and raising awareness of energy efficiency and self-production. One of the most significant examples is the replacement of ornamental plants with edible species, such as currants, strawberries and citrus fruits.