Cities Feeding People: An Examination of Urban Agriculture in East Africa

Bruce Grainger is head of the Public Services Department, Macdonald
Library, McGill University.

Urban agriculture can be defined as the practice of food production
within a city boundary or on the periphery of a city. The term has also
been applied to the activities of town dwellers farming land in rural
areas or to agricultural activities on large tracts of farmland enclosed
within city boundaries, as is frequently the case in China. An
introductory chapter describes the role of urban agriculture in a
world-wide context and demonstrates its vital role in fool production.
It is interesting to note that the biggest growth in agricultural jobs
in Canada during the 1980s occurred in those census divisions within
Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.

Case studies on urban agriculture in four East African countries are
presented in as many chapters, which focus on Dar es Salaam, Tanzania;
Kampala, Uganda; Nairobi and five other cities in Kenya; and Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia. These studies show that growing vegetables and raising
livestock in cities is not the practice of rural migrants slow to adapt
to urban life, as has been supposed. Rather, it is the more established
city dwellers who are likely to have access to land that can be used for
agricultural purposes. The authors show that urban agriculture is a
necessary part of food production in the African cities surveyed and
that it makes a vital contribution to the nutritional requirements
and/or income of its practitioners. The concluding chapter summarizes
the issues and calls for more research and for policy changes in support
of urban agriculture. A comprehensive bibliography and an index complete
this useful study.