THE VITALIZATION OF AVAILABLE

URBAN OPEN SPACE IN THE UK

THROUGH URBAN AGRICULTURE
___________________________________
Delivering the self sufficiency in the urban food system and enhancing
community cohesion

IYANESHPANDIAN CHANDRASEKARAN
This dissertation is submitted in part fulfillment of the regulation for the
MA in Urban Design

Department of Planning

Oxford Brookes University

October 2015

Page | 2

ABSTRACT:
This research proposal is mainly focused on two main aspects in urban
farming. Firstly, how to make those available and potential open public
spaces in cities of UK more productive and vitalized through urban
farming than just being justified to environmental qualities in terms of
urban design and planning. What sort of impact or result thus this
approach might have to the besiding communities which are connected to
such space. Does it is possible and feasible economically and politically.
Secondly, how does the productivity of such potential public open space
would meet the demands of the locals or neighborhoods or both in terms
of food productions. Does it could produce enough to feed the targeted
publics and would that got any influence over the joy or satisfactory level
of the public's mentally, physically and economically. This approach wasn't
something extracted from rocket science or genetic innovations, this was
part of our life and life style which was now a forgotten past and it is
necessary for us to bring it back to social life and life style to meet the
demands and to maintain holistic cohesion among peoples in so many
aspects. This could be achieved through study of existing literatures and
case studies, and with the extracted details and data's we can formulate
an urban farming design and management frame work and that could be
tested in a existing live site conditions since this research follows the
typology of design based research and as a result of testing we would end
up with the proposed design, data calculations, quantity data's, urban
farming typologies etc.,. And this approach includes applying different
methodoloies of design ideas starting from site selection to designs and to
crop suggestions with respective to meet food supply demands of current
population density and also hypothetically intensifying the population
density considering future immigrants flow. And all these will be
illustrated clearly and deeply through the research to achieve the project
aim.
Word Count: 14, 534
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
I would never have been able to finish my dissertation without the
guidance from dept. of planning, OBU, help from friends, and support
from my family. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
advisor, Dr. Jon Cooper, for his excellent guidance, caring, patience, and
providing me with an excellent atmosphere for doing research.
I would like to thank Dr. Alan Reeve, module leader for the timely help
along with all other faculty members from dept. of planning. Special
thanks to the office of student support coordinators for their kind concern.
I would like to thank Kaushall Katale, Mihir Mehta, Shiva, Karthik and
Chandru who as a good friend, was always willing to help and give their
best suggestions. It would have been a lonely phase without them. Many
thanks to staffs in the library for helping me to reach requested study
materials and bearing all my trouble. My research would not have been
possible without their helps.
I would also like to thank Dr. Sarah Yassine, St. Bartholomew's, Medical
center for her time and encouraging me with her best wishes.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents, sister and brother in law. They
were always there cheering me up and stood by me through the good
times and bad.

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CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..............10
1.0 Introduction:........................................................................10
1.1 Research Question:................................................................11
1.2 Research Aim:......................................................................12
1.3 Research Objectives:.............................................................12
1.4 Methodology:........................................................................13
1.5 Research Methodology design:................................................14
1.5.1 Imaging:........................................................................15
1.5.2 Presenting:.....................................................................15
1.5.3 Testing:..........................................................................15
1.6 Limits to Scope:....................................................................18
1.7 Structure of Dissertation:.......................................................18
1.7.1 Introduction and Research methodology (Chapter 1):............19
1.7.2 Understanding the context of Urban Agriculture (Chapter 2):..19
1.7.3 Techniques and Management of Urban Agriculture (Chapter 3):
.............................................................................................19
1.7.4 Design and Management Guidelines (Chapter 4):..................20
1.7.5 Analysis of Findings (Chapter 5):........................................20
1.7.6 Conclusion (Chapter 6):....................................................20
CHAPTER 2: UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT OF URBAN AGRICULTURE 21
2.1 Introduction:........................................................................22
2.2 Background study: Urban Agriculture:......................................22
2.3 Evolution of Urban Agriculture:................................................23
2.4 Policies and Agenda's:............................................................24
2.5 The Growing Practice of Urban Agriculture:...............................28
2.6 Food Miles:...........................................................................29
2.7 How do we actually do Urban Agriculture and it's typologies:.......32
2.8 Potentials of Urban Agriculture:...............................................35
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2.8.1 Urban Food Security and Nutrition:.....................................35

2.8.2 Local Economic Develoment:.............................................36
2.8.3 Social Impacts:................................................................36
2.8.4 Contribution to Urban Environmental Management:..............36
2.9 How to Urban Agriculture benefit Urban Requirements:...............37
2.10 Conclusion:.........................................................................38
CHAPTER 3: TECHNIQUES AND MANAGEMENT OF URBAN AGRICULTURE
..................................................................................................40
3.1 Introduction:........................................................................41
3.2 CPUL - Continuous Productive Urban Landscape:........................41
3.4 Allotment and Community Gardens:.........................................45
3.6 Urban Orchard, Vermiculture:..................................................47
3.6.1 Urban Orchards:..............................................................47
3.6.2 Vermiculture:..................................................................47
3.7 Compost Management:..........................................................48
3.7.1 Compost Processes:.........................................................49
3.7.2 Characteristics of Compost:...............................................50
3.7.3 How does the organic waste are used as fertilizer:................51
3.8 Aquaculture in Urban Food Sytem:...........................................51
3.9.1 Types of Spaces used in Urban Agriculture:..........................54
3.10 Types of Crops....................................................................55
3.11 Access to Sunlight:..............................................................56
3.12 Case Study 3: London Thames Gateway, London, UK................58
3.13 Urban Agricultural Matrix, Extracted from following case studies: 59
3.14 Summary of the Conceptual Framework:.................................60
3.15 Conclusion:.........................................................................61
Chapter 4: Design and Management Guidelines..................................62
4.1 Introduction:........................................................................63
4.2 Purpose of the Guidelines:......................................................63
4.3 Site Analysis:........................................................................63
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4.4 The Guidelines:.....................................................................67

4.4.1 Neighborhood Scale Design and Management:.....................68
4.4.2 Urban Agriculture Typology with Respect to Neighborhood:. . . .69
4.4.3 Plot Legibility, Connections and Flexibility:...........................74
4.4.4 Community Farming and Community Cohesion:....................75
4.4.5 Plot Adaptability and Robustness:.......................................78
4.5 Conclusion............................................................................78
Chapter 5: Analysis of Findings........................................................80
5.1 Introduction:........................................................................81
5.2 Results:...............................................................................81
5.2.1 Do you think urban agriculture will be a tool for future in dealing
with the urban food system?......................................................82
5.2.2 How do you perceive the value of growing food in urban
developments?........................................................................83
5.2.3 Would these guidelines be helpful in guiding consultants,
developers, government and other stakeholders?..........................83
5.2.4 Key Recommendations:.......................................................84
5.3 Conclusions:.........................................................................85
Chapter 6: Conclusion....................................................................86
6.1 Introduction..........................................................................87
6.2 Key findings:........................................................................87
6.3 Achieving Aim & Objectives.....................................................88
6.4 Limitation of the Research:.....................................................89
6.5 Significance if Research:.........................................................89
6.6 Further Research:..................................................................90
Bibliography:................................................................................91
Image Reference:..........................................................................93
Appendix:.....................................................................................95

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Overview of Methodology (Author, 2015).............................14
Figure 2: Flowchart of the Research (Author, 2015)............................16
Figure 3: Garden Cities of Tomorrow (Ebenezer's Howard, Charnel House,
n.d).............................................................................................26
Figure 4: Urban Food Star (Bohn&Viljeon, 2014)................................28
Figure 5: Five Borough Farm (RAUF).................................................33
Figure 6: City Farming for the Future (Veenhuizen, 2006)....................34
Figure 7: Benefits of Urban Agriculture (Five Bhorough Farm, RUAF).....37
Figure 8: CPUL concept. Green corridors providing continuous productive
open space (Viljeon et al. 2014)......................................................42
Figure 9: The Urban Farming Project, Middlebrough, UK ( Bohn&Viljoen,
2014 & Gorgolewski et al., 2011).....................................................44
Figure 10: Lafayetty Green, Detroit (Second Nature Urban Agriculture,
2014 & asla.org)...........................................................................46
Figure 11: The integrated ecosytem of crop vermiculture waste treatment
and field photographs.....................................................................48
Figure 12: Aquaponic Diagram (aquaponichowto.com)........................53
Figure 13: Aquaponics: Conceptual design for a system in an urban
setting (Viljeon et al., 2010)............................................................53
Figure 14: Sustainable Resource and Activities (Philips, 2013)..............54
Figure 15: London Thames Gateway (Bohn&Viljeon, 2014)..................58
Figure 16: Masterplan- Bury Knowle Park (www.oxford.gov.uk/parks). . .65
Figure 17: Site Connectivity to the City- Bury Knowle Park (Author)......66
Figure 18: Site Potentiality within the range of 0.5miles - Bury Knowle
Park (Author)................................................................................67
Figure 19: Green and Blue Network Connection as per CPUL Bohn&Viljeon (Author)....................................................................68
Figure 20: Community farming, crop ideas (Author)...........................73
Figure 21: Street Network (Author) Legibility and Place identity (Author).
...................................................................................................75
Figure 22: Showing the precedents for each zone (Author)..................78
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: National Travel Survey data about personal travel for shopping in
the UK, 1998-2000........................................................................31
Table 2: Carbon emissions from the large-scale box system (Cairns,
2005)..........................................................................................31
Table 3: Sources of Embedded Energy in Box System (Cairns, 2005).....31
Table 4: Composition of Municipal refuse for low, middle and upper
income countries...........................................................................49
Table 5: General Properties of Finished Compost Source: Brunt et al. 1985
...................................................................................................51
Table
6:
Sunlight
Requirement
for
Vegetable
Garden
(garden.menoyot.com)...................................................................56
Table 7: List of common flower and vegetable plants according to their
light requirements (garden.menoyot.com).........................................57
Table 11: Plot Legibility, Connections and Flexibility............................74
Table 13: Plot Adaptability and Robustness........................................78

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH

METHODOLOGY
"We must become the change we want to see.-Mahatma Gandhi"

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1.0 Introduction:
This research is based on a sustainable approach towards urban
planning and designing in terms of urban farming or agriculture
considering the needs and demands for the future. The one major issue
which does not seem to have been adequately considered during this
modern era is food stability and food miles. Although the concept of a
green revolution was an important element of planning in the 20th
century, still there seem to be no proper answer to the issue of growing
population in urban sector the demands of food supply in a sustainable
manner or controlling

population growth in urban and pre-urban

landscapes which in turn creates an issue of inadequate food supply.

According to Despommier, the world population was about 6.80 billion in
2008 and it is expected to rise up to or even more than 9.50 billion by
2050. Also he quotes that the actual available and used arable land for
farming is almost equal to the surface area of South America and with
this increase in population growth we might require an additional surface
area equivalent to the land mass of Brazil this is not available in current
conditions. Yes, it might be argued that there is enough arable land mass
for conventional agriculture but the concept we are dealing here is self
sufficiency in agricultural methods. Conventional methods of farming and
approaches cannot feed the future because of extreme use of chemical
fertilizers and using genetic engineering as a tool for excess food
production to meet the demand but the food produced through such
process is been categorized under malnutrition food and also paves way
for many deficiencies and deceases among the young generations. As a
result we have to look for alternative solutions of food production. If the
future does not meet the required demand of food supply that might lead
massive starvation and armed conflicts caused by the scarcity of the
essential resources of food and water. That is why an alternative method
of food supply as to be considered with the constraints of sustainability,
self sufficiency and also it should enhance all the environmental qualities.
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1.1 Research Question:

Based on the above mentioned background this research seeks to answer
the following question:

"How can we vitalize available urban open spaces in the UK

through Urban Agriculture and how to deliver self sufficiency in
urban food system and enhance community cohesion?"
1.2 Research Aim:
In order to answer the research question, research seeks to address the
following aims.

To identify the features and elements of urban farming.

To identify the quantity of food needed to be produced by urban

farming to meet the demand for future food supply.

To identify the urban design development guidelines to enable urban

farming.
To identify the renewable and sustainable resource management
techniques/approaches to support successive farming in urban

context.
To evaluate the criteria's of urban farming which facilitate the
betterment of urban social network.

1.3 Research Objectives:

To achieve all the aims mentioned above, the research will seek to
achieve the following objectives.
1. To develop a framework to understand and analyze the policies,
theories and practical design approach in relation with urban
farming.
2. Identify the

current

innovative

technologies

and

sustainable

approaches with respect to renewable resource management to

support the functioning of urban farming.
3. Reference to objective 1 & 2 develop the urban farming design
development and management guidelines.

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4. Utilize all the above objectives to derive guidelines to model and

evaluate the quantitative aspects of urban food production.
5. Test the derived and modeled design guidelines and management
processes with the academics and professionals such as urban
planners,

urban

designers,

architects,

landscape

architects,

engineers etc.,
Report the findings, use them to refine the guidelines and models to make
recommendations and conclude the research by stating the ability and
credibility of urban farming as a means of addressing future food demand.

1.4 Methodology:
Therefore, as mentioned in below figure, the research methods need to
undertake literature reviews which is supported by case study analysis,
extraction of development of design and management guidelines, testing
of the extracted design and management guidelines via interviews and
mappings; and reporting over the findings and concluding the research.

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Figure 1: Overview of Methodology (Author, 2015)

The type of methodology of the research for this dissertation is "inquiry

by design" process. And the following section explains more about the
selected design methodology.

1.5 Research Methodology design:

In order to obtain the research aim and objectives, the research process
chose is called "inquiry by design". John Zeisel originally developed this
design methodology during 1984 which is a process of research were the
researcher proposes there research and design which constantly evolves
throughout the process as well as having certain direct relations in
fundamental guidelines.
"Inquiry is the creation of knowledge or understanding; it is the reaching
out of a human being beyond himself to a perception of what he may be
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or could be, or what the world could be or ought to be." C.West

Churchman,(The Design of Inquiring Systems)
According to Zeisel (1984, p.6), he describes in his research development
process, 'three elementary activities' to form the development process of
designing such as imaging, presenting and testing.
1.5.1 Imaging:
As per Burner,1973 it is the ability of going beyond the available
information produced. Imaging means in general giving a design form or
known language to the given information so that it could be understood in
full sense. These helps in providing large frame work to accommodate
requirement and also to fit in resolved problems into the design
(Zeisel,2006, p.22-23).
1.5.2 Presenting:
The mode of externalizing and communicating the images evolved is
generally referred as presenting, it can done either by sketching, drawing
plans, building models, taking photographs and as a combination of few
and all. It talks pure skills not only in presenting ideas well and also to
chose the mode of presentations. And the level of presentation depends
on the stages of design process (Zeisel,2006, p.24).
1.5.3 Testing:
Once the design idea is presented in any mode or form, designers tends
to sit back with a critical eye and examine their products(Hillier et al.,
1972;

Korobkin,

1976),

sometimes

in

groups

and

sometimes

alone(Chirstopherson, 1963). The phase of testing as a interesting

process that designers look both backward and forward simultaneously:
backward perception is to determine how good the tentative product is
while the forward perception is to refine the image being developed and
to modify the next presentation(Zeisel,2006, p.24).

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The process of research methodology goes as per three stages as

discussed above, in which the 'imaging' phase of this research consist of
Stage 1: Conception of the context, which includes literature review from
secondary source regarding urban agriculture and revitalization of urban
open space through urban farming with supporting case study analysis.
Stage 2 is the 'presenting' phase: Formulation of Design Guidance
(Guidelines), which includes development of Design and management
guidelines through literature review and case study analysis. The last
phase is the 'testing' which forms stage 3 of the research where the
derived

guidelines

are

tested

through

interviews

with

academics,

professionals in the field of planning, developers and agriculturist and the

consumers(common public). And the testing phase also includes an
analysis of the findings and conclusions. Below figure (2) explains the
research phases undertaken as part of this dissertation.

Figure 2: Flowchart of the Research (Author, 2015)

As discussed above, the stages of the research are explained in more

detail in the below sections.
Stage 1: Conception of the Context (Imaging)
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Methods of inquiry: Literature review supported by case study analysis

Objectives covered: Object 1 to Object 2
Literature Review:
This stage of the research is further sorted out under two major
components

through

descriptive

and

diagnostic

studies.

The

first

component based on deriving the typologies and functional views of urban

agriculture or urban farming through secondary sources and case study
analysis and as a result, a framework to be developed which outlines the
requirement

and

demands

oriented

with

urban

agriculture/farming

(Zeisel, 2006). In addition, this feeds data required for the process of
research in the sense of types, planning, methods and management,
design, qualities, quantities and the spatial implications related to urban
design and urban farming. The second component of this stage based on
literature review and case study analysis to understand the adaptability
and potentiality of available open space in the cities of United Kingdom in
terms of urban farming. The analytical framework is derived which
explains the features and quantity requirement of urban agriculture to
enable revitalization factors of urban farming in available public open
space in the cities of United Kingdom (Zeisel, 2006).
Stage 2: Formulation of Design Guidance (Presenting)
Methods of Inquiry: Development of Design and Management Guidelines
Objective Covered: Objective 3
Development of Design and Management Guidance:
As a result of literature reviews and case study analysis, design and
management guidance (guidelines) is developed at this stage of the
research. The main aim of these extracted guidelines is to provide the
possible

design tools

and

management

techniques

to

enable

the

revitalization factor to the public urban open space achieving demands of

food supply respective to the site. And this phase of the research is
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design based hence it is experimental, the derived guidelines can be

overlooked at this phase and could be visualized again through literature
reviews and case studies to produce successive guidelines with respect to
the aim of the research.
Stage 3: Testing the research (Testing)
Method

of

inquiry:

Interviews

with

academics,

professionals,

and

consumers/users
Objective Covered: Objective 4:
A set of guidelines is produced as a result of objective 3, which is taken
for interviews to test the effectiveness of the guidelines. Interviewers
feedback is important not just on the product but also the process
associated with the urban agriculture serving the aim of the research.

1.6 Limits to Scope:

The concept of urban agriculture is vast and considering time constraints
there are some limits to this research. The research is dominantly focused
on vitalizing the available public open space in urban context through
urban farming which is supported by the details of typology of farming,
quantity of food demand and supply, management techniques, influence
of urban farming over the environmental qualities and community
cohesion and the scale of structure. And it is mostly applicable to low and
medium density developments. The limited scopes of the research
includes spatial details of waste management techniques and its design
strategies and yields and costing associated to applied techniques of
urban agriculture.

1.7 Structure of Dissertation:

This dissertation is broken into the following chapters as follows,
Chapter 1: Introduction and Research methodology
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Chapter 2 & 3: Literature Review and case study analysis

Chapter 4 & 5: Designing, Testing and report the findings on the research
Chapter 6: The conclusion.
These are described more in detail below.
1.7.1 Introduction and Research methodology (Chapter 1):
This chapter produces an overview of this dissertation and explains the
background, importance and justification of this research. It also provides
elaborate description of the research question, aim and objectives. The
type of research methodology and its morphological layers were discussed
in detail which is designed in a way to deliver the aim of the research.
1.7.2 Understanding the context of Urban Agriculture (Chapter 2):
This chapter produces detail understanding of urban farming and its
typologies through intensive literature reviews and supported by case
study analysis. It also discusses about the advantages and possibility of
retrofitting urban agriculture into the existing public open spaces for the
benefit of the neighborhood. Features and scale of the structure is
determined through site analysis and it is considered for the development
of design guidance to implement the aim of the research.
1.7.3 Techniques and Management of Urban Agriculture (Chapter
3):
This chapter figures out the demands in food supply and derives a
quantitative framework to meet the demand of food supply through
literature reviews and specific case study analysis. It also describes basic
urban

design

environmental

principles
qualities

in

and
terms

delivering
of

urban

and

safeguarding

agriculture,

the

community

participation and cohesion and water and waste management strategies

through literature reviews and case study analysis. A detailed analysis

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over the outcome of this sections, will act as the vitalizing factor, which is
one of the core research aim to be achieved.
1.7.4 Design and Management Guidelines (Chapter 4):
In this chapter all the findings and data's are consolidated to form the
analytical framework and literature review to draft the design guidelines.
The design guidelines generally consist of series of design principles,
design objectives and standards which are aimed at guiding to achieve
the research aim and question.
1.7.5 Analysis of Findings (Chapter 5):
This chapter basically deals with the analysis of the interviews taken to
produce the feedback of the research findings and the guidelines
(guidance). It also illustrates the impact over the derived research
findings

and

guidelines

by

the

feedback

received

from

relevant

professionals/academics/consumers.
1.7.6 Conclusion (Chapter 6):
This chapter evaluates and interprets the analysis of the results from the
above chapter (chapter 5) along with the findings from literature reviews
and case study analysis and also provides the reflective summary of the
research findings. It also explains how the derived design objectives have
been met criteria's and how it supports aim of the research.

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CHAPTER 2: UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT OF

URBAN AGRICULTURE
"There is nothing wrong with change as long as it is in the right direction.-Winston Churchill"

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2.1 Introduction:
This chapter deals with producing the developed framework for the
analysis and the research proposal by defining the theoretical and
practical aspects of urban agriculture. And this chapter focuses over
objective 1 and 2 of the research methodology, which helps to map the
required framework. This chapter also analysis the conditions required for
urban farming, discusses about the typologies and scales, its advantage
and scopes and features. This also provides an overview of the impact of
urban farming into an urban sector in term of urban design principles and
environmental quality and set of design objectives would be extracted as
the result of this chapter. The key concepts are summarized in the below
table which are to be addressed in this chapter and its purpose to the
research.

2.2 Background study: Urban Agriculture:

Definitions: "Urban agriculture or urban farming is the process of
cultivating processing and distributing in and around a village or town or
city.(Google, general definition)"
In other words it can be defined as the process of growing of plants and
raising animals within and around cities. The most significant feature of
urban agriculture is its evolution of rural form to the urban economic and
ecological form/system. It is embedded in and interacting with urban
ecosystem. That specific linkage could be explained by inclusion of urban
residents as the labourers of different scale, skill and levels, use of typical
urban resources such as organic waste as compost and urban waste water
for irrigation, it generates direct link with urban consumers, urban ecology
(positive and negative), being a part of urban food system, competing for
the land with other urban functions, being influenced urban policies and
masterplans, etc. Urban agriculture is not a relic of the past that will fade
away (it is directly proportional to growth of the city) nor brought to the
city by rural immigrants that will lose their habits over time. It is been
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visualized as an integral part of the urban system (Resource center on

urban agriculture and food society foundation, RUAF Foundation).

2.3 Evolution of Urban Agriculture:

In late 19th centuries of Europe, urbanization of world population started
with the expansion of industrial capitalism, which resulted in cities grew
into metropolitan regions, large urban agglomeration with complex
economies and structure, on every continent in the world in both rich and
poor nations during the 20th century. As an impact of this revolution or
growth, whatever, many farm lands were consumed for the purpose of
industrialization

and

to

build

concrete

structures

for

human

accommadation. The distance between urban and rural regions started

increasing which associates with the increase of food price, production,
employment etc., and also drawn an imaginary line between urban and
rural context stating that the smarts settles in the cities while the rest
busy in agriculture in rural areas (Despomier, 2010). Such environment is
not good for the development of human and environment by bifurcating
their growth and considering it as two different entities. If this prolonged
then the urban-rural divide will reach its logical conclusion, food
production will be isolated from human habitat and there will be very little
direct engagement of people with the land that produces the means for
their subsistence. Once the creteria of the ratio of arable land to the
growing population are identified in the west, the concept of urban
agriculture started its evolution. Primarily, the idea was taken into
consideration with huge amount of investment into the built structure to
create required floor space or surface area required for growing specific
food products this includes even the animal husbandary. This structure
and

function

involve

huge

cost

involvement

and

high

expensive

technologies, which wasn't sounded sustainable at all. Then they started

realizing the factor of minor influence of the concept into the available
open space, derelict space, brownfield etc. and started yielding products
and harvested and marketed with the help of urban and neighborhood
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communities. Though the scale was small, it started to give outputs than
expected in the sense of health and mentality of the community. Such
practices were very common among the African continent where it is
much essential to bring in the concept of self sufficiency in the living
urban context, meanwhile the same is applied throughout the western
regions, creating the awareness to reach a rapprochement to prevent an
impending catastrophe that is human as much as the environment.
C.J.Lim in his food city explores the same theme in the transformation of
cities and its importance as well. The ideological and polemic scope of the
food city is the result of an investigation into the reinstatement of food at
the core of national and local governance and how it can be a driver to
restructure employment, education, transport, tax, health, communities
and the justice system and also it involves the process of re-evaluating
the city functions as a political entity (C.J. Lim, Food City).

2.4 Policies and Agenda's:

"Food is a sustaining and enduring necessity.yet among the basic
essentials for the life - air, water, shelter, and food - only food has been
absent over the years as a focus of serous professional planning interest.
This is puzzling omission because, as a discipline, planning marks its
distinctiveness by being comprehensive in scope and attentive to the
temporal dimensions and spatial interconnections among the important
facets of community life" (APA 2007).

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The food supply, production in cities, self sufficiency of the cities were
discussed and emphasized during the late 19th century theoritically by
planners and designers (Georgelewski et al, 2011). Provision of landuse
for the growing food in urban centers was discussed by Ebenezer's in the
'Garden cities of tomorrow'. In the design of several cities quoated in
'Garden cities of tomorrow', five-sixth of the total land area within the
cities was dedicated to the production of food (Georgelewski et al, 2011).
The relation between the food production and planning was considered
even in the early 19th century, below diagram explains the proportion of
food production in the city. In 2007, Jerry Kaufman led a team of planners
and proposed policy maker to consider their substantial work on
relationships between the food system of an urban entity,its spatial design
and development planning and the same has been published and adopted
by American Planning Association (APA), the resulting Policy Guided on
Community and Regional Food Planning which is widely accepted as
marking the beginning of a new era.

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Figure 3: Garden Cities of Tomorrow (Ebenezer's Howard, Charnel House, n.d)

Global North has shown a significant increase in design research and

academic exploration of urban agriculture and its spatial effects over the
last decade. Agrarian Urbanism (Waldheim 2010), Transition Towns
(Hopkins 2008) and CPUL City (Viljoen et al. 2014) were some of the
examples of thinking holistically about the origin, current practice and/or
future of spatially integrated urban food production from the perspective
of architectural and urban designers. The urban agricultural projects have
emerged increasingly in last five years that are demonstrably successful
Page | 26

enterprises - traditionally economic or social - provides proof of the

acceptance of productive urban landscapes as a desired and planned
urban land use (Viljoen et al. 2014). Though the North American was a
pioneer in urban agriculture, during the early 2000's it started to spread
across the UK and other European countries. Urban food growers from
Germany had shown a steady increase in their numbers and plots, and
Berlin had doubled their community gardens during 2005 (Rosol 2006;
TUB 2011). Since 2010, edible town' Andernach has been on headlines
frequently (Andernach n.d.) and the facilitation of 'productive landscapes'
has been laid down as a development aim in Berlin's open space planning
strategy (SenStadt 2012).

Page | 27

The Capital Growth project in the UK gave London the community

gardening boost to create a goal of 2212 new projects for London
Olympics 2012. Cities like Brighton along with Brighton and Hove Food
Partnership (BHFP 2012), Bristol with Bristol food Network 2010, Leeds
with Leeds Permaculture Network n.d. and London (Sustain n.d.) has
developed a strong, dedicated food growing networks and programmes
since at least 1999. Bath in 1997 established first farmers market (BFM
2009) and then followed by the nationwide establishment of the National
Association of Farmers' markets in 1998 (Pavitt 2005).

The interest of

productive urban landscape has spread, and several urban planning

reports are now recommend their introduction or support in cities such as

Page | 28

Detroit,

Berlin

and

Leeds

(Viljoen

et

al.,

2014).

Figure 4: Urban Food Star (Bohn&Viljeon, 2014)

2.5 The Growing Practice of Urban Agriculture:

The considering growth and awareness in urban agricultural contexts
expresses the willingness of the urban food system, but the real question
here is how do we support the development of urban agriculture and
productive landscapes so that they can reach both their full food-growing
Page | 29

potential and move beyond niche activism to become part of the

integrated urban food system, consequently gaining spatial significance
within the urban fabric. During the process of such development there are
certain challenges to be addressed to proceed successively in the context
of urban agriculture. And there are four main challenges to be identified
and addressed, such as
1) Productive Urban Landscape: Temporary and permanent research and
planning ideas area need to coherently embed urban agriculture spatially
into urban areas and local contexts.
2) Toolkit/Actions or Guidelines: Clear applicable guidance and best
practice dissemination are essential to enable and augment the capacity
of urban food growers, their projects and their sites despite the great
accumulated knowledge about and the huge social capital invested in
urban agriculture.
3) Food Policy: To support and safeguard urban agriculture practice and
sites there should be a recognized regulation or agreements with public
decision makers (i.e. planning, trading, land rights) and other food related
entities (i.e. rural, markets, accreditation bodies).
4) Urban Food Sytem: Urban agriculture should be included in the
mainstream of food production and procurement systems, to widespread
and maximize its associated social, public health and environmental
benefits.
And all these above mentioned challenges needs to be developed
parallelly and coherently along with the city's particular local, regional and
international urban food system(s).

2.6 Food Miles:

The greater the food miles, greater must be its negative environmental
impact. And food miles could be defined as distance of food travels
between farm and plate. In early 1990's the term 'food miles' firstly
Page | 30

coined in UK and has been variously attributed to 'The Food Miles Report'
published by the SAFE Alliance (Lang 1994). It is based on the idea that
growing and consuming local produce was inherently less wasteful than
importing it from elsewhere. UK imports 50% of the vegetables and 95%
of the fruit (Stacey 2008), expressing dependency and investing so much
cost and energy in transporting it in.
"It's fantastic. Not that anyone will notice if I drop dead, but it ... would
be somewhere in my epitaph that this is a man who coined food mile"
(Adams 2008).
The debate over food miles is rapidly morphed into the carbon footprint
debate with consideration of global warming and has become a cause
celebre for environmental activists and the UK's National Association of
Farmer's Markets naturally seen the opportunity provided by this debate,
and a campaign under the slogan "Local food is miles better"during 2006
was a successive one. The terms like 'local food' and 'food mile' became a
powerful tool in policy discourses built around sustainable agriculture and
alternative food system (Coley et al. 2009). Mode of transportation of
food is blurred in debate, where air freighting involves far greater carbon
emissions than transportation by ship. Air transport has a greater
negative impact over the climatic change than comparing with sea
transport (DEFRA 2005).International food distribution patterns involving
air freight generate 30 times more co2 than sea transport (Mason et al
2002).There

is

complex

relationship

between

food

miles

and

sustainability and there could be trade offs between environmental, social

and economic factors (DEFRA 2005). Since the economic value of the
developed countries is very high, they have no problem even considering
high carbon emission methods or transportation modes which in turn
world's poorest and developing nations will suffer the most from European
food miles lobbying (Ballingall and Winchester 2009). It's been estimated
(DEFRA 2005) on food mile report, that co2 emissions attributable to food
transport by heavy goods vehicles (6274 kt), light good vehicles (1076 kt)
Page | 31

and cars (2392 kt) are more than five times higher than co2 emissions
attributable to sea freight greatly exceed those attributable to road
transport. And in the process, distance traveled by consumers during
buying food is also blurred, travel for food and household items still
represents 40% of all the shopping trips by car and 5% of all car use
(Cairns 2005) (table below), which equates to over 16 billion vehicle km
per annum. And also further more criteria's need to be taken into account
while calculating the food mile-carbon emission i.e. carbon emission from
the large scale boxing system for packing foods during transportation and
embedded excess energy consumption for packing and refrigerating.

Table 1: National Travel Survey data about personal travel for shopping in the UK, 1998-2000
Source: Date from the National Travel Survey - an annual survey of approximately 9400
households designed to be representative of the UK, with results aggregated into 3-year bands for
improved reliability (DTLR, 2001 as reported in Cairns, 2005)

Table 2: Carbon emissions from the large-scale box system (Cairns, 2005)

Page | 32

Table 3: Sources of Embedded Energy in Box System (Cairns, 2005)

2.7 How do we actually do Urban Agriculture and it's

typologies:
In this section we are going to understand the various systems and types
of urban agriculture practiced around the world. Through this study, we
could identify possible and suitable typologies to our selected site to
satisfy this research.
In the United States, they are majorly classified into four important
models were distinguished as most applicable and convenient to use in
the city planning and advocacy. And it is based on the variables of
locations,

size,

types

of

management

and

degree

of

commercial

orientation (Advocates for Urban Agriculture, 2004):

Institutional Farms and Gardens:
They are usually located as a part in any institutions, schools, etc. and its
scale depends on the availability of the site and its management is taken
care by the institution itself.
Home Gardens:
The scale of this type is usually small and adjacent to a house or
apartment and it is managed by the residents, with production primarily
for home use only. It can generate small scale income from the produce
or value added products are possible.
Community Based Gardens:

Page | 33

The scale of the plots is much larger than the above type and it is
subdivided into several small plots. It is usually located on other city or
community owned land or on grounds of communal areas, community
centres, food pantries and housing developments. They are generally
managed by the community (with production mainly for use by the
member households) or by the institution involved (for feeding school
children, hospital clients or prisoners or for income generation).

Commercial Gardens and Small Farms:

The scale of this type is very large compared to the above models, and
also vary in sizes depending on the availability of plot and conditions.
Vacant lots in a commercial or residential area either owned or leased and
some derelict or Brownfield land was considered as plots by the producer.
Type of Urban Agriculture

Figure 5: Five Borough Farm (RAUF)

An urban Harvest Program in Cameroon (www.cipotato.org/urbanharvest)

as identified six major types of farming systems, considering the certain
Page | 34

variables such as location/land tenure, crop mixture, technology used

(open pollinated or improved varieties), degree of commercialization of
products and intensity of population. And these weren't the only
classification of urban agriculture or farming, even other authors identified
types with the use of similar combination of variables and varying degrees
of specification of farming systems (Drescher, 1999 on Nairobi, Kenya;
Jacobi et al., 2000 on Dares Salaam, Tanzania; Zakariah et al., 1998 on
Accra, Ghana; and Buechler and Devi, 2002 on Hyderabad, India).
The typologies of urban agriculture has been summarized differently by
Moustier and Danso (2006) by using multiple criteria's for four major
types of urban agriculture.

Subsistence home intra-urban farmers.

Family-type (semi-) commercial farmers (intra- and peri-urban).

Intra- and peri-urban agriculture entrepreneurs (intra- and periurban).

Multi-cropping peri-urban farmers (mainly former rural producers

who are influenced by the city, adapt their production system to the
demands of the nearby city, and diversify their livelihood with other
occupations).

Page | 35

Figure 6: City Farming for the Future (Veenhuizen, 2006)

2.8 Potentials of Urban Agriculture:

In this section we are going to deal with the understanding of the
potentiality and benefits of urban agriculture into the planning context in
various perspectives.
"World leaders and member states of the United Nations have agreed on
an agenda for reducing poverty and improving livelihoods, MDGs. The
agenda consists of eight main MDGs specified in 18 development
targets:each goal has a target figure, most set for 2015, using 1990 as a
benchmark, and indicators designed to monitor the extent to which the
target has been achieved. The different targets are not specified for rural
and urban areas. Urban agriculture is an important, complementary
strategy to achieve MDG 1 (Eradicated poverty and hunger), MDG 3
(Promote gender equality ad empower women), MDG 6 (Combat
HIV/AIDS and other diseases) and MDG 7 (Ensure environmental
sustainability). UN-HABITAT's Urban Management Programme and the
Page | 36

Urban Millennium Partnership aim to support cities and local actors in

developing adequate intervention strategies" (www.unhabitat.org).
As quoted above, urban Agriculture could contribute a lot to the MDGs,
and very specifically over the urban poverty and hunger and ensuring
environment sustainabilities and qualities. The overall benefits are
consolidated into the following headings as stated below
2.8.1 Urban Food Security and Nutrition:
Urban agriculture is an important asset in the contribution of food security
and healthy nutrition, and the production of food in the city and urban
centers are often a response of the urban poor to inadequate, unreliable
and irregular access to food and lack of purchasing power. Lack of urban
income translates more directly into the lack of healthy food than rural
settings (Argenti, 2000). And the cost involved in supplying and
distribution of food from the rural areas to the urban area, or to import
food in the cities, are rising continuously and the distribution of healthy
food within the cities is uneven as a consequence of urban food insecurity
(Argenti,

2000).It

is

estimated

that

200

million

urban

residents

(FAO,1999) produce food for the urban market providing up to 20% of

the world's food (Armar-Klemesu, 2000).
2.8.2 Local Economic Develoment:
It acts as an important source of income for a substantial number of
urban households and in addition to income from sales of surplus, farming
households save on household expenditures as well by growing their own
food, which can be substantial since poor people generally spend a
sizeable part of their income (50-70%) over food. It also supports microenterprises in the production of necessary agriculture inputs (fodder,
compost, earthworms), the processing, packaging and marketing of
products (Homen de Carvalho, 2001) and the provision of services such
as animal health services, transportation (Moustier and Danso, 2006).

Page | 37

2.8.3 Social Impacts:

An important strategy for poverty alleviation and social integration of all
people

and

specifically

disadvantaged

groups

(HIV/AIDS-affected

households, disabled people, female-headed households with children,

elderly people without pensions, jobless youth), with the aim to integrate
them more strongly into the urban network, providing them with a decent
livelihood and also by preventing certain social problems/issues like drugs
and crime (Gamett 200; Gonzalez Novo and Purphy, 2000). In additional
to that it can also be assume an important role by providing recreational
and

educational

activities

to

urban

citizens

or

in

landscape

and

biodiversity management and community building (Smit and Bailkey,

2006).
2.8.4 Contribution to Urban Environmental Management:
The world's one serious issue, waste disposal could be addressed
effectively through urban agriculture by turning urban wastes into
productive

resources

(Cofie

et

al.,

2006):

compost

production,

vermiculture, irrigation with waste water etc. Greening of the city,

improvement of the urban micro-climate (wind breaks, dust reduction,
shade) and the maintenance of biodiversity(Konijnendijk, 2004) are some
of the positive impact of urban agriculture and urban forestry.

Page | 38

Figure 7: Benefits of Urban Agriculture (Five Bhorough Farm, RUAF)

2.9 How to Urban Agriculture benefit Urban Requirements:

The concept of "greening the city", making it visually and psychologically
pleasing and satisfied for the commuters and consumers by proposing
public garden designs, park design and its managements.
Inclusion of Urban agriculture into the urban context will bring back
nature into the city, deals the concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem in
urban contexts.
Neighborhood health is maintained at a higher level, both physically and
psychologically and also socially (Community cohesion).
Disadvantaged

peoples,

elderly

and

therapeutic

peoples

could

be

benefited by the art of farming into the city.

Page | 39

Depending on skill level to unskilled level, it can employ appropriate

members of all age groups and gender and it can help them yield income
respective to the scale and type of farming.
Waste water and rain water management into the urban context could be
handled with efficiency in a sustainable way(irrigation, water purification).
It could also play a major in climatic managements and pollutions, such
as cooling, heating, reduction in urban heat island effect, check over noise
and air pollution. In addition to it, it enriches the sensory richness of the
neighborhood.
Maintains and offers environmental quality in terms of the soil water
table, soil and air quality, purification of water and acidified soils by
choosing appropriate plant types, blue green network connection etc.
Recycling of waste management: most recycled products could be used
for farming, its compost could be used as manure, bio fertilizers could be
manufactured and used within the city (sustainably).

2.10 Conclusion:
Basically, this chapter covers Objective 1 of the research topic, providing
an analysis of back ground and evolution of urban agriculture with
respective to timelines, details about the policies and agenda's involved
featuring Millenium Development Goal's (urban agriculture related), also
elaborates urban food system, growing practice and food miles. The
morphological layer of the typologies of urban agriculture and its benefits
were discussed providing clear findings, which are appropriate with the
key requirements respective to management, process and planning
frameworks and its implementation.
The understanding of this chapter will be linked with the following
chapter(3) where the urban agriculture techniques and process of
functions would be discussed. And a consolidated conceptual framework

Page | 40

would be produced at the end of succeeding chapter, which will provide

requirements to draft the design guidelines in chapter 4.

Page | 41

CHAPTER 3: TECHNIQUES AND MANAGEMENT OF

URBAN AGRICULTURE
"Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become. Anonymous"

3.1 Introduction:
This chapter addresses another subdivision of objective 2 which is
different from the above discussed chapter 2 where it deals with the
Page | 42

understanding the context of urban agriculture and about the policies and
agenda's of urban food systems wherein in this chapter we will be dealing
with the details of urban agriculture techniques with respect to definition
and techniques involved in each technique and its management process.
The theoretical and practical background studies associated with the
different form of urban farming approaches mostly related to community
and garden farming as the main stream of this research. This chapter
could be subdivided into two major sections, where the first one deals
with

the

techniques

and

management

followed

by

case

study

understandings, providing a conceptual framework for the research which

helps to draft the design guidelines for succeeding chapter.

3.2 CPUL - Continuous Productive Urban Landscape:

The concept of CPUL city best describes as an urban future based on the
planned and designed continuous landscape defined by urban agriculture
into existing and emerging cities. (Bohan&Viljoen 2010). The systematic
approach of the CUPL, proposes that urban agriculture can contribute to
more sustainable and resilient food systems while adding beneficial to the
spatial quality of the urban realm. It is the concept of providing coherent
to the urban system connecting the city through the green network and
making it more productive to benefit the local food system. The main
physical manifesto was to propose fundamental changes to the urban
landscape and so implies an equal change in the way society and
individual experiences, value and interact with that landscape. The
outdoor space for food production, leisure, movement, commerce shared
by people, natural habits, non vehicular circulation routes and ecological
corridors were identified as the key feature of CPUL's. It is the process of
creation of a qualitatively rich urban landscape which, above all, strives to
incorporate the growing of local and organic food (Viljeon et al. 2004).
The

simultaneous

design,

planning

and

establishment

of

'mini'

interdependencies enabling the recurring sequence of successful food

growing were the major importance for the success: preparing the soil Page | 43

planting

growing/caring

harvesting

eating/processing/preserving/selling - composting/seed production. It is

the important concept of this research as it involves mapping for the
purpose of food production (Viljeon et al. 2014).

Figure 8: CPUL concept. Green corridors providing continuous productive open space (Viljeon et al.
2014)

Page | 44

3.3 Case Study

Middlesbrough,UK.

1:

The

Urban

Farming

Project,

Figure 9: The Urban Farming Project, Middlebrough, UK ( Bohn&Viljoen, 2014 & Gorgolewski et al.,
2011)

Page | 45

3.4 Allotment and Community Gardens:

The history of allotments runs deep in UK, since the practice of providing
piece of land to the laboures by the landlords which were formally used of
grazing once. And this is considered as one of the oldest planning system
of urban agriculture (Doron, 2005). The management of such allotted
land is taken care by the farmer itself and is is of small scale farming,
mainly managed for households rather than considering it as a source of
income. And the current resurgence over the productive planning system,
these allotments were considered again in the planning system. As per
Doron, 2005 most of the planning bodies in America and Australia
developed city farm and community garden movements. Though it's been
part of the history, now in the UK it is in waiting list to get include
because of the interest in growing local food and localism as beign spread
through the country (Bell, 2014). The open spaces which are managed
and operated by the members of the local community were termed as
community gardens in which food and flowers were cultivated (Holland,
2004; Pudup, 2008; Kingsley et al. 2009). The general characteristics of
community gardening involve crop grown, groups involved and land
tenures, and mostly it's been used for growing food crops or native
vegetation, in case flowers were preferred over the food crops it would be
usually for beauty or organic gardening practices (e.g. marigolds for
managing certain pests). Most of the community gardens were managed
by the non profitable organizations and the next common groups was
schools, faith based organizations, hospital, jails, women's or senior
centers, housing complexes or residents who grew their vegetables for
profit (Tucker & Gilliand, 2007).

Page | 46

3.5

Case

Study

2:

Lafayetty

Green,

Detroit,

USA.

Figure 10: Lafayetty Green, Detroit (Second Nature Urban Agriculture, 2014 & asla.org)

Page | 47

3.6 Urban Orchard, Vermiculture:

In this section the details and description over the practical and
theoretical approaches over orchard and urban vermiculture and details
and characteristics of compost management will be discussed.
3.6.1 Urban Orchards:
The main criteria over the concept of urban orchard was to bring in
fruiting trees in the street scape of urban context which not only satisfies
the sensory riches over the seasons but also producing seasonal fruits
providing fresh fruits to the neighborhoods. And most of these urban
agriculture techniques were managed by the non profitable organizations
with the base of charities. The concept of edible streets can be harvested
by the residents or by the communities benefiting and improving social
cohesion which maintain the environmental quality of the urban centers.
Most cases, urban orchards along the streets and pavements were free to
pick, which in turn bring friendly identity to the place an important
objective for urban designers and planners (Barthelson, 2014).
3.6.2 Vermiculture:
Along with the growth, development and standard of living improve over
the period of years, humans produce more and more organic waste on a
daily basis, including households garbage, agriculture waste and sludge, if
these waste are not collected properly and treated in a timely and
effective manner, these organic wastes not only take up much available
land, cause environmental pollution and harm human health and also
constitutes

serious

waste

of

resources.

Through

vermiculture

technology, most of the biodegradable materials through the activity of

earthworms as the biological agent, and such technology is referred as a
suitable management process. It is the simpler process which doesn't
involve landfills, fermentations, farmland use, and incineration and it cost
less and the treatment is effective with less secondary pollution
(Ravikanth et al. 2011).
Page | 48

Vermicular Cropping System: It consists of alternating bands of crop

ridges and worm farming troughs and these bands were parallel along the
north south direction. Three rows of wheat were planted on each ridge
during winter crop with the space of 15cm between the rows and two
rows of corn were planted on each ridge during the summer with the
spacing of 35cm and 25cm between each plant. During cultivation, no
fertilization, irrigation or tillage applied.

Pest problems were treated by

spraying biological pesticides, and residual straw was placed on top of the
earthworm troughs to get protected from sunlight and bird predation,
slow down evaporation and provide food to worms. Organic waste was put
into each trough and E. fetida was introduced. Through light extraction
process, earthworms were extracted from the vermicompost.

Figure 11: The integrated ecosytem of crop vermiculture waste treatment and field photographs

3.7 Compost Management:

Urban Organic Waste can be defined in simpler terms as a biodegradable
waste such as households refuse, market waste, yard waste and animal
Page | 49

and human waste. Environmental issues and serious health issues are the
negative impacts over accumulating such waste and the management of it
should be a timely process. Improvement and safeguarding the public
health and welfare, reduce waste generation and increase resource
recovery and re-use and protect environmental qualities were the chief
goals of municipal refuse management (Cointrea, 1982).
Low Income
Countries

Middle Income
Countries

Industrialized
countries

Waste generation
(kg/cap/day)

0.4 - 0.6

0.5-0.9

0.7-1.8

Composition (%
wet weight)

1-10

15-40

15-40

Paper

1-5

1-5

3-13

Metals

1-5

2-6

2-10

Plastics

40-85

20-65

20-50

Vegetable

1-5

2-10

Wood/bones/straw
Table 4: Composition of Municipal refuse for low, middle and upper income countries
(Cointreau, 1982)

3.7.1 Compost Processes:

The end product of the biological degradation process is called the
compost (composting, co-composting or anaerobic digestion) and it is a
stable product. The composting process is carried by micro organisms if it
is kept moist and aerated. The variable which needs to checked or
controlled to make a good compost are oxygen, moisture, nitrogen in
organic matter, temperature and the acidity (pH) (Brunt et al. 1985).
Composting system could be classified as open (non reactor) and closed
system (reactor) and closed system are preferred over the industrialized
countries. Anaerobic decomposition happening in the absence of oxygen
under the controlled and uncontrolled system, biogas is produced and
Page | 50

because of the production of biogas quantity and quality of compost will

be less. The odourless and pathogen free black mixture can be used as a
soil conditioner in either aerobic or anaerobic process, good compost
resembles humus (Brunt et al. 1985).
3.7.2 Characteristics of Compost:
A good compost can be ussed for different purposes such as fertilizer, soil
conditioner, feed for fish in aquaculture, landfill material and as a soil
medium for horticulture. (Polprasert, 1989). And a good compost can be
classified into four types based on its characteristics such as raw, fresh,
mature and special compost.
Raw compost - disinfected or not decomposed.
Fresh compost - Early stages of bio degradation and fully disinfected.
Mature compost - Fully compost and disinfected.
Special

compost

Further

processed

through

screening,

ballistic

separation or air classifying, addition of mineral substance or both.

All these forms could be used in urban agriculture depending on the need
and requirements, but generally type 3 and 4 are preferred 9Brunt et al.
1985)
Property

Normal Range

Moisture (g/100g)

30-50

Inert Matter (g/100g)

30-70

Organic content (g/100g)

10-30

pH(1:10 slurry in distilled water)

6-9

Maximum particle size (mm)

2-10

Table 5: General Properties of Finished Compost Source: Brunt et al. 1985

Page | 51

3.7.3 How does the organic waste are used as fertilizer:

Organic waste could be used in urban agriculture practices in different
ways such as:
Using garbage: directly on the garbage heap or in the back yard
Using compost, self-produced or brought
Using manure from cattle (raised near house)
Using human waste (treated or untreated)
The usages of manure and human waste were generally used in
combination such combination types results positively, like carbon content
from the compost is a bulking material while the nitrogen and moisture
high in human and animal waste.

3.8 Aquaculture in Urban Food Sytem:

It is nothing but farming of fish and its type in a artificial habitat is
referred as aquaculture. Harvested rainwater is potential enough in the
development of fish tanks (Woods, 2014). This process is proposed in
certain methods such as huge tank when it is done commercially, in the
context of urban agriculture, cultivating and harvesting the same in a tank
even in the backyards by the method of aquaponics is well preferred in an
unban context. It is the process of combining of aquaculture and
hydroponics for the production of aquatic animals meant for food, the
symbiotic nature of aquatic animals and hydroponic plants helps this
process to be highly sustainable. Rainwater is used to fill the fish tanks,
will the water from the tank which is used for irrigation in hydroponics
(high in nutrient, which plants require), and the purified water from the
roots of hydroponic plants get back to the fish tank. There is a possibility
of losing quantity of water by means of evaporation, leak, etc., but in
marginal quantity, hence there should be proper check over the system
manually though the full process is automated. A specific fish, carp
(Cyprinus carpio) is promising due to their adaptability and high yield
Page | 52

(Pierpoint, Hadlow College, UK) and it requires temperatures ranging

between 23 to 30 degree Celcius and pH 6.5 to 9.0 (FAD, 2012). That
specific could weigh up to 2kg after 2 - 4 rearing season (Karakatatsouli
et al, 2010). Some other species could be also cultured and some data's
shows that per hectare of open water can produce 55 tons of seabream or
92 tons of salmon per year (Neori et al, 2004). With the context to urban
sites, hypothetical rainwater tank of 10x5x2m (100 cu.m) can yield up to
1000kg to 2000kg per tanks annually (based on 85 kg per cu.m stocking
rate and a harvest up to four seasons) (Ruane and Komen 2003;
Karakatsouli et al., 2010:125). In the UK, per capita consumption of fish
is about 217g per week, which equates 11kg per capita per annum (COT,
2004) then the actual fish meat production could be 800-1600 kg per
tank (100 cu.m), means it could feed the people of annual diet about 70140.

Page | 53

Figure 12: Aquaponic Diagram (aquaponichowto.com)

Figure 13: Aquaponics: Conceptual design for a system in an urban setting (Viljeon et al., 2010)

3.9 Requirement for Urban Farming:

In

this

section,

associated

details

such

as

spatial

and

climatic

requirements and different types of space used for urban agriculture other
than big urban plots/blocks will be discussed. What ever required in the
conventional method of agriculture

is even required in urban concept,

because food growing system is all same except for the few innovative
and smart approach of practice. Sunlight, shade, water, soil (substitute),
nutrients, work force (skilled and unskilled), fertilizers (bio fertilizers),
seeds, markets, packing, store, kitchen, etc., are the mandatory
Page | 54

requirements and sustainable resource required by urban agriculture is

shown below.

Figure 14: Sustainable Resource and Activities (Philips, 2013)

3.9.1 Types of Spaces used in Urban Agriculture:

Urban agriculture is in an existing environment is possible only when
subjected to availability of space or else extensive investment as to
compromised to produce such space, for a sustainable approach, and also
as per CPUL increasing the potential of urban landscapes, parks and
plazas and other open spaces are preferred rather than built form.
Availability, quality, geography and land ownership are the main criteria to
be looked in for. And usually urban agriculture is practiced on land found
in different locations in the city such as backyard or courtyard, communal
lands, public and private open spaces, vacant land satisfying quality and
conditions for growing crops, in this context these spaces are next to
streets, highways, rails, vacant or derelict land, brownfield sites where it
is unsuitable for building house considering basic urban environmental
qualities. In other hand, commercial urban farming could also be possible
in large fields at the edge or outside the city or in the continents like
Africa and Asia. In high density-population cities, would rather have less
Page | 55

unused or open space compared to less dense and unplanned regions,

where the urban agriculture attains a different form from micro-scale to
small scale(rooftop, balcony, container, growing walls).
"Every little helps" (C.J.Lim, 2010)
However, fertility, quantity of sun and shades, pollution, neighborhood
matters for effective incorporation of urban agriculture. And the scale of
urban farming is determined by three main categories such us number of
urban farmers in a city and quality of neighborhood, size of the plots and
the actual level of production.

3.10 Types of Crops

It is important to understand, that all types of crops and trees grown in
convention agricultural land could also be cultivated in urban areas
subjected to restrictions on land availability and climatic factors (mainly).
If the crops choose is highly adaptive in nature then it's yield will be
higher and this goes even with animal and aquatic cultures and not just
vegetables are harvested, we find fruit and nut trees, trees of medicinal
purpose, trees which leaves are eaten, roots and tubers, staple crops,
spices, etc. are produced (Wade, 1986). In small and medium scale might
be subjected to season crops while large commercial farming could
produce rest of the crops through proper sustainable investments.
Selection of crops grown depends on many factors such as, reason of
farming, climate, soil and availability of water, skilled and unskilled labour,
culture of neighborhood, distance, ease of theft, pollution land tenure,
etc. along with these physical subjects there are some more consideration
involved

in

crop

selection

like

economic

factors,

less

expensive

installation, good market crop, minimal cooking time (to keep fuel costs
low),

environmental

factors,

suitable

for

local

conditions

(drought

tolerant), growing habits (climber and creepers), taste and nutritional

factors, high yield, compensates over specific urban deficiencies (Vit A,
Proteins, etc), harvest period, etc. (Wade, 1986).
Page | 56

3.11 Access to Sunlight:

Site selection plays an important role in accessing sunlight to the crops, in
high density regions often ends up open space over shaded which is not
suitable for some crops and by including urban agriculture into planning
will generate planning bodies to design considering this issue thereby
flexibility in choosing crops would be handy. On an average, 6 hours of
sunlight per day are required for a crop (Philips, 2013), more the sunlight
more the quantity and quality of the yield. As per Capital Growth, 2014
not all the crops need a minimum of six hours of sunlight, there are crop
which can grow successive even in partial sunlight and thus site plays a
key role in selection of crops.
Vegetable Types

Minimum Sunlight

Crop types

Fruiting Vegetable

8hrs

Tomatoes, peppers,
eggplants, vine crops,
etc.

Root vegetable

6hrs

Carrots, beets, etc.

Leavy Vegetable

4hrs

Lettuce, spinach and

collards, etc. Generally
'Greens'

Table
6:
Sunlight
(garden.menoyot.com)

Requirement

for

Vegetable

Garden

Table 7: List of common flower and vegetable plants according to their light requirements
(garden.menoyot.com)

Page | 57

3.12 Case Study 3: London Thames Gateway, London, UK.

Figure 15: London Thames Gateway (Bohn&Viljeon, 2014)

Page | 58

3.13 Urban Agricultural Matrix, Extracted from following case

studies:
Projects

Method of
Farmings

Morphologica
l Layers

Spatial
Impacts

Benefit
to
Greenin
g the
city

H M L H
Lafayetty
Greens,
Detroit, USA.

The Urban
Farming
Project,
Middlesbrough
, UK.

London
Thames
Gateway,
London, UK.

Raised
Beds &
Poles

Blocks

Gardens &
green
walls

Plots

Schools &
Hospitals

Blocks

Gardens,
farmlands
& animals

Plots

Allotment
&
community
garden

Green
Network &
Streets

Parks,
Plazas,
Open
spaces.

Green, Blue
Networks

Buildings
Plots

L
The
demolished
old building
block is
reused as a
urban garden.
The whole of
town, with
concept of
town meal".
More than
2000
residents
participate,
including all
age groups.
DOTT07
manages
entire
functionalities.

Motorway, Street
walk and Networks
cycle
pathways
Balconies
&
Rooftops

Descriptions

&

An idea of
connecting all
the available
open space to
form a Green
Grid of
London, in
which urban
farming is
done as a tool
of connectivity
in different
levels and
scales.

Table 8: Urban Agriculture Matrix (Author)

H- High; M- Medium; L - Low

Page | 59

3.14 Summary of the Conceptual Framework:

The previous section provided with the much needed understanding of
urban agriculture key methods, typologies, features and benefits, with the
following details a conceptual framework is derived with identification of
key conditions required for urban agriculture.
Urban Agriculture
Methods and
Design Approach

Morphological
Layers

CPUL's

Green and Blue

network

Community &
Garden Farming

Scale of the
application
S

Blocks & Plots

Managing
Bodies

General
Requirements

Managed via
Spatial
Mapping
system,
identifying
existing and
future urban
agriculture

Vacant and
unused land,
parks, plazas,
open spaces.

NGO's,
community
associations,
Institutions,
Hospitals,
Welfare
Homes, etc.

Parks, Backyards
& Frontyard,
Shared public
space.

Urban designers
and planners,
Architects,
landscape
Architects,
labours in all
levels.

Planners and
designers, council
members,
Horticulturist,
Labours in all
levels

Green and Blue

network &
Infrastructure
development

Streets

Council,
CPUL's, NGO's

Streets,
Pathways along
river sides and
parks, vehicle
restricted
lanes.Planners
and designers,
council members,
Labours

Vermiculture,
Orchard &
compost
management

Plots

Council,
NGO's, Leased

Plots, Backyard
or Frontyard,
Streets.
Horticulturist,
Leaser, council
members,
Labours in all

Page | 60

levels
Framing Free &
Guerilla Gardens

Plots

Residents &
Individuals

On any available
space.
Residents and
Individuals

Vertical FarmingGreen wall:

Hydroponics

Blocks & Plots

Quality of Public
realm

Streets

NGO's,
Community
Mangement.

Hydroponics,
Aquaponics.

Council and
Managed by
community

Streets,
pavements,
public spaces,
parks, plazas.

Horticulturist,
Architects,
Leaser, Labours.

Urban designers
and planners,
Architects,
landscape
Architects,
labours in all
levels.
Table 9: Conceptual Framework for Urban Agriculture-Revitilizing Open Space
S- Small scale, M-Medium Scale, L-Large Scale

3.15 Conclusion:
This chapter covers both the objective 1 and 2 of this research. Primarily,
it explains the theoretical principles and approaches of Urban Agriculture
and later it analysis over the role and implication methodology of urban
agriculture in the selected site, specifically, it deals with the literature
review

of

origin,

influences,

impacts,

implementations

of

urban

agriculture, community and garden farming and how it could answer the
research question proposed at the beginning of the dissertation.
The main aim of this chapter is to understand the critical design and
management theories and process involved in urban agriculture and how
it could be applied over the selected site to serve the research aim. With
the finding of frameworks developed through this chapter, the design and
management guidelines produced will form the next chapter.
Page | 61

Chapter 4: Design and Management Guidelines

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed,
it is the only thing that ever has. - Margret Mead"

Page | 62

4.1 Introduction:
This chapter deals with the series of design and management guidelines
that supports the planning of sustainable urban open space in a
neighborhood scale with the stream of urban agriculture. The following
sections explain the purpose of the derived guidelines and also explains
how to use them in the site conditions.

4.2 Purpose of the Guidelines:

The main purpose of the guidelines is to provide a tool for the direct
application over the approach of research aim, i.e., vitalizing the available
urban open space by means of urban agriculture to deal food security and
community cohesion. By having this study material as a tool to design a
sustainable neighborhood scale masterplan on the selected site. The main
intent of the document is to provide guidance to the authorities, property
owners, business owners, designers, planners and developers about the
fact of this research and it also includes guiding the resident individual
and community members about the needs and benefits of urban
agriculture in the scale of community farming and garden farming. The
structure of the guidelines is around the design objectives which is
supported by design standard and suggested by design techniques.
The

aim

of

the

guidelines

is

to

provide

design

strategies

and

implementation of urban agriculture and also to provide management

process of the same.

4.3 Site Analysis:

The historic city of Oxford is considered for testing and applying the
derived set of guidelines, since the city has shown great respect to
neighborhood's physical and psychological components. And it also holds
great history of English empire along with world renowned institutions,
and it is nature towards research and development is highly impressive.
The chosen site Bury Knowle Park, Headington is about 3.5 miles away
Page | 63

from the city center with greater connectivity of public transport, actually
the main purpose to chose the site because of it's connection to the city
at one end and connects with rest of the peri-urban areas of Oxforshire at
the other ends and acting as node for the city.
Bury Knowle Park:
It is a very beautiful and historical park in the center of Headington which
is active 24 hours a day all year. This park is about 7 hectares of land
area, including tennis courts, mini golf, kids play, age old trees, library
and huge green areas for doing picnics and playing. And this park serves
very close to the neighborhood residents since it had seen generations of
residing peoples and also new peoples every seasons. The link between
the neighborhood resident with respective to all age groups and gender
uses the facilities. The Oxford city council is the main governing body of
the public space and a organization of friends group also looks around to
maintang

the

quality

of

the

park

through

public

participation

(http://headington.org.uk/buryknowle/index.html).
Headington:

The

urban

node

has

all

required

facilities

for

the

neighborhood development in term of hospitals, Institutions, schools,

nurseries, clinics, restaurants, fast foods, four big supermarkets, post
offices, transportations to the city, airport and London is available
throughout the day all the year. Hence the potential nature of the site is
identified for the implication of design and management guidelines over
the Bury Knowle Park (Urban public open space), where most members
show interest in participating in urban agriculture.

Page | 64

Existing Features & Nature of Bury Knowle Park:

Existing masterplan from the city council below,

Figure 16: Masterplan- Bury Knowle Park (www.oxford.gov.uk/parks)

Considering existing activities and functionalities of the park, an area of

about 2.40 hectares of land area is chosen for the implementation of
community farming and garden farming (South East region between the
pavement forming the triangle). Another portion of the site is fully
occupied by the provision of kids play area, tree carvings, sensory garden,
tennis and mini golf court, library building and highly utilized green open
space while the other portion of the park as playing lots and trees of
different scales. Considering the existing conditions and counting in the
Page | 65

existing trees, the chosen site is taken for further design application for
the benefit of the community.

Figure 17: Site Connectivity to the City- Bury Knowle Park (Author)

Figure 18: Site Potentiality within the range of 0.5miles - Bury Knowle Park (Author)

Page | 66

4.4 The Guidelines:

The following section provides a series of guidelines that a sustainable
approach over the urban public open space through urban agriculture at
the neighborhood block, plots and street scales, and each morphological
layers were addressed by primarily outlining the technical methods and
considerations of urban agriculture with respective to scale and then
identifying the options for procurement and management which supports
the approach of this research. Further the guidelines were subjected to
objective, design standard and techniques to achieve sustainable and
adaptable planned space to increase the self sufficiency for the urban food
system and to anchor and develop community cohesion which is delivered
through urban agriculture.
4.4.1 Neighborhood Scale Design and Management:
There are certain design implementation components and feasibility data's
required at the scale of the city and/or neighborhood to deliver a
sustainable approach

over the available urban public open space, this

helps the design to get linked to the surrounding context.

Scale: Identification and connection of urban open space of the entire
neighborhood through CPUL's design strategy is the basic guideline, hence
the neighborhood scale is taken care. The below figure explains the
connection of green networks to propose future urban agriculture
expansion in the city to its design standards and techniques based on the
morphological layers, the below network is proposed after identifying
potential available urban open space and street networks in Oxford and
are connected with a basic understanding of the city concept of CPUL
(Viljeon et al., 2010).

Page | 67

Figure 19: Green and Blue Network Connection as per CPUL - Bohn&Viljeon (Author).

Urban Agricultural methods:

Allotments, edible street network, smart pavements, community farming,
garden farming, institutional farming & green infrastructure.
Technical Considerations:
All the mandatory conditions such as sun, shade, orientation of the
site/plot and soil type, fertility of the soil, ground water table, availability
of the raw materials, irrigation type, wind exposure, access and legibility
where the main criteria's. Then the ownership of the land, governing
bodies, planning authorities, maintenance, harvesting and distribution
system should be considered.
Procurement and Managements:
Once the green network is established, the ownership of the land as to
checked, in case if the authority or council owns the land then they will
act as the land developer and take further actions in funding and
execution. If the land is owned by stakeholders, the scale may differ to
plot scale and it could be developed by small scale developers or in block
scale with the supervision of authority or council, individual developers
can take care of the development of the framework (Tarbatt, 2012).
Page | 68

4.4.2 Urban Agriculture Typology with Respect to Neighborhood:

At the neighborhood scale following objectives to be identified:
Design Objective:

Retrofit urban agriculture into the existing site condition with the
nature of adaptability and multiple purpose usage

Apply respective urban agriculture techniques with respective to site

and climatic conditions

Design Standard

Design Techniques

Ensure the plot scale application

connects well with the block scale
planning, considering CPUL's city
map strategy.

Potential urban open space in the

neighborhood is identified and
connected by green networks, and
non vehicular street patterns are to
be proposed for further connection.
And the framework plan is shown in
the fig .

Propose Landuse plan for the site,

where different typologies of urban
farming is developed considering
site conditions

Considering site condition, existing

tree
along
the
periphery
is
maintained and peripheral urban
farming techniques such as vertical
gardengreen
walls,
guerilla
gardening
were
implemented.
Green wall system is a substrate
substitute
system,
hydroponic
methodology is considered and the
water
supply
is
from
the
aquaculture tanks which make this
as a Aquaponics type. Crops such
as leafy vegetable are preferred
over the green walls, and guerilla
farming, depends as per individual
residents interest and both will be
managed by the community. And at
regular spacing anti pest flowers
bed should be incorporated.

Sun and Shade influence over the Farm plot orientation is developed
site which impacts over the considering sun path, and most of
selection of crops.
the farms are East West oriented.
Plots closer to the tall trees will lose
sunlight for some time than the
besiding plots, which has an
Page | 69

influence in deciding types of crops.

And it has nothing to do with the
farming type. Since the urban
agriculture is applied over the open
greens, theirs is no need of raised
garden methods.
Management System

In house compost system and

vermiculture
system
installed,
which act as an additional resource
for procuring fertilizers and it can
be
considered
as
renewable
resource
with
respective
to
seasons. With the additional cost
involvement even this could be
taken care.
Community
Association
to
be
formed enrolling neighborhood and
volunteers, and also to be helped
by the council and other NGO's
over the functional quality of the
community farming mainly having a
regular check over the compost and
vermiculture system.

Education and Public participation

It is an important factor for

creating awareness among the
community and individuals, hence
an exhibition hall and classrooms
are provided to educate community
members and volunteers over the
process.

Community Markets

These community markets are

temporary and also can act as a
permanent feature depending on
yield. Two different market are
were provided separating vegetable
and aquatic animals for the
convenience of the buyers.

Table 10: Urban agriculture typology with respect to neighborhood (Author).

Page | 70

Fig: -Masterplan and Landuse plan(Author).

Page | 71

Figure 20: Community farming, crop ideas (Author).

Page | 72

4.4.3 Plot Legibility, Connections and Flexibility:

At the street scale, following objectives to be identified
Design Objective:

The site has already a place identity, with tree carvings, sensory
garden so the design proposed should go with the existing nature of
the park.

Legibility of landmark elements should be maintained and retained.

Connectivity into the park should be pedestrian friendly and detail

signage should be provided in all required places.

Design Standard

Design techniques

Legibility and place identity of the

site to be maintained.

All existing historic, monumental

and micro urban details were
retained and even incorporated into
the new framework to provide links
to the surrounding.
This park is already having certain
landmark and place identity
features with good legibility, hence
the proposed framework also
follows the same line and not
disturbing the existing character of
the open space.

Connection and Flexibility in the

design considering the growing
nature of the neighborhood.

All pathways and pavements inside

the parks are pedestrian and bicycle
friendly. Bicycles are allowed only
on the peripheral pavement and
considered in the middle of the farm
considering the functional
discomfort to the farm. And all ends
are connected to the neighborhood
as existing.

Table 8: Plot Legibility, Connections and Flexibility

Page | 73

Figure 21: Street Network (Author) Legibility and Place identity (Author).

4.4.4 Community Farming and Community Cohesion:

The following objective should be met at the plot scale.
Objectives:

Neighborhood communities should be benefited by community

garden in the process of food production.

Provide places for interaction and relaxation.

Design Standard
Community
community

farming

Design Technique
serving

the Prefer crops which are native to the

region and community. Consider all
age groups and gender to be the
part

of

the

community

garden,

Page | 74

everyone can have their impact at

different levels. Manage events and
invite

community

member

and

neighbors and friends often to the

farm

and

celebrate

along

with

farming. Produce crops which are in

demand and intake is high.
Give it back to the Park

It must not consume every plot with

farming, give it back to the Park.
Provide places to interact and play
within the farm. Enhance the sense
of

touch,

vision

and

smell

by

planting sensory herbs and flowers.

Pavement

used

should

be

anti

slipper and anti strain and also

should be hard enough to withstand
harvesting machine and tools.
Conduct events for charity and help
the for a cause, which will seek
council's attention and resulting in
creating the identity of the farm and
the community. Educated kids about
the farming techniques and make
them urban farming as a hobby.
Table 12: Community Farming and Community Cohesion

Page | 75

Figure 22: Showing the precedents for each zone (Author)

Page | 76

4.4.5 Plot Adaptability and Robustness:

The following objective must be met at the plot scale
Objective:

To implement plots that allow for change of crops and use

Ensure plots are highly adaptable to urban agriculture

Design Standard

Design technique

The plots should be designed to

maximize the yields and also in a
way it could adopt with the plots as
well.

Plot adaptability could be dealt in

two cases. The first, the use of the
plot is entirely changed for a
temporary purpose for a particular
period of time and in the second
case, the multiple crops could be
grown in the single plot system.
And formulate crop practice so that
repeated crops is restricted since it
can result in certain nutrient
deficiency in the soil.

Farm Extension, to the backyard of As an expansion of farm and

community.
interest, encourage people to utilize
their backyards for farming, provide
them with basic needs and make
them grow in their own yard. By
doing this CPUL's city plan could be
achieved.
Table 9: Plot Adaptability and Robustness

4.5 Conclusion
This chapter delivers Objective 3, which consists of a series of design
guidelines that enable implementation of a sustainable approach to the
available urban open space through urban agriculture. The guidelines
delivers an evolutionary design outcome with adaptable spaces for urban
agriculture. The series of design objective is derived through the
morphological layer which is followed by design standards and suggested
Page | 77

design techniques to deliver the aim and also explains the appropriate
methods of urban agriculture and its associate management options.
The guideline developed in this chapter have been tested with a series of
interviews with both academics and professionals with expertise in the
areas of urban design and urban agriculture projects. The following
chapter provides an analysis of the results of the interviews.

Page | 78

Chapter 5: Analysis of Findings

Page | 79

5.1 Introduction:
To meet objective 4 and of the research after the completion of objective
3 which is the chapter 3 (design and management guideline), interviews
were undertaken with the selected panel of experienced practitioners from
different backgrounds (Urban designers, town planners, academics,
architects, common publics) to be able to discuss and give feedback from
a different perspective.
The following were the questioned asked with the experts during the
interview, and all these four questions take care of the research aim and
as well as includes feed back for refining the research and also elaborates
the scope for further research. The results of the interviews and the
analysis are developed in the next section and this chapter concludes on a
series of recommendations over the process, design and management
guidelines to improve the findings and implications strategies of the
research purpose.
Interview Question:

Do you think urban agriculture will be a tool for future in dealing

with the urban food system?

How do you perceive the value of growing food in urban

developments?

Would

these

guidelines

be

helpful

in

guiding

consultants,

developers, government and other stakeholders?

Can you recommend any changes to the guidelines to strengthen

the effectiveness?

5.2 Results:
Experts working in different domains and in different geographical context
answered the above questions. The key findings of this testings are
summarized and categorized below.
Page | 80

5.2.1 Do you think urban agriculture will be a tool for future in

dealing with the urban food system?
The answer to this question is mostly yes from the experts with certain
conditions and timeline, such us referring to a certain studies over the
requirement of arable land

required for cultivation to feed the growing

population one of the specific answer is against my argument of not

having sufficient arable land for conventional cultivation. Though most of
them accepts urban agriculture as a tool for future in dealing with food
system they consider the food miles and organic value and employment
benefits, eradicating poverty, etc as facts but the non availability of arable
land is not accepted. Throughout the world, most of the cultivable land is
exploited, sterilized and contaminated because industrial revolution,
reclaiming

those potential lands and energizing it to get back to its

original characteristic will help in two ways, firstly, addition of arable land
and secondly high yield of crops. And at the same time, there are so
many measures have now been taken to control the overall population
growth of the world through awareness and education which will help the
cause of excess population
One of them questioned back about the feasibility over the functionality of
these community farmings, though the argument involved with engaging
all

age

group

people

and

gender, certain

sub

classification

was

recommended. The socio-economic background of the members plays a

vital role in functional aspects of urban agriculture, not all age groups get
involved for the full season from seasoning to marketing. Even the
cultural and traditional background has an impact over the participants.
But in case of institutional farming right from the nursery to university,
optimistic feedback received. And the approach of vitalizing the available
urban open space was appreciated, because even now vertical farmingbuilt form, all in one building or block was not convincing. They all believe
in plots scale and neighborhood scale of planning and designing in the
existing urban context is appreciated.
Page | 81

5.2.2 How do you perceive the value of growing food in urban

developments?
Even the same response for this question as well, they all are positive
perception over the availability of organic food very close by. As per the
statistics of NHS funding towards obesity is about 1.0 billion GBP year in
the UK and it is in raising rates. Nutrition deficiency for kids could also be
capitalized with the inclusion of organic food in the plate regularly. It is all
the personal interest should bring the people to participate in community
farming and maintain the energy level of the community to actively
participate regular farming activity. Since it is not the conventional
method of farming, they suggested with proper communication with the
community about the over all system involved, processing details and
management guidelines it is possible to make peoples participate, still lot
of volunteers expected other than to community members to add skills
and innovation into general practice.
At the same time, Certain other creteria's were discussed which is needed
to be addressed such as some residents or group of resident won't prefer
to participate in farming activity for some reasons, so planning needs to
be done even considering them. So a study report over the feasibility of
urban agriculture is recommended which is not included with this report.
5.2.3 Would these guidelines be helpful in guiding consultants,
developers, government and other stakeholders?
The derived design and management guidelines were not up to the
expectation. They clearly said this can't be taken to the consultants or
developers or any official bodies, but refining and proper understanding
could be done to improvise guidelines and how the document could be
improved to increase the effectiveness of the guidelines. And questions
related to planning and regulations were not addressed in detail in the
research process, identification of such is recommended. And the
application of design of the site was very conceptual and it lacks more
Page | 82

details which is mandatory for the research proposal, with detailed

designing there is always a space for improvising and evolving in better
design. A study of cost involvement, will give a clear picture of calculating
investment and gain strategy which will actually attracts many peoples in
the community and even governing body will also consider if the design
and detail stand up with all required data's.
5.2.4 Key Recommendations:
The summary of recommended changes to the guidelines recommended
by the participants, which explains the changes and additional details.
Due to the limited time constraints, the suggested changes couldn't be
incorporated into the design and management guidelines, but it could be
considered as a future scope of research within this area.
Recommendation R1

The structure of the flow of the

guideline is suggested to start from
the smallest scale to the larger
scale.

Recommendation R2

Insufficient diagrams explaining the

details of the guideline of urban
agricultural techniques

Recommendation R3

There could be more detailed and

well explained design objectives to
concentrate more into the detail of
design guidelines

Recommendation R4

Guidelines are suggested to get

explained in more detailly than
short. Because, there are lot of
details to be explained in the
guidelines.

Recommendation R5

However explained in detail, the

level of language should be in
professional level because nobody
in the lower level going to access
the produced document.

Recommendation R6

A feasibility report and demographic

sociology
study
producing
calculation of work force available,
age groups of population, gender
Page | 83

ratio, socio economic structure of

the site neighborhood, cultural and
traditional practices need to be
produced as a evident
Recommendation R7

Incentive
strategies
over
the
developers,
stakeholders,
organizations, resident individual
should be appreciated

Recommendation R8

Some of the literature review are

furnished with details which is not
in all case, and that reflects in
management guidelines.

Recommendation R9

More details over the irrigation

system, drainage systems, pest and
pathogens control, stagnant water
treatment are recommended.

5.3 Conclusions:
The following research shouldn't be considered as full set of required
data's though it satisfies the research aim, with consideration of
recommended suggestions theirs is always a scope for further research in
the subject.To meet objectives 4 & 5 of this research, this chapter
provides a description of the interviews conducted and associated analysis
of findings and the next chapter provides the details summary of the
results and conclusions.

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Chapter 6: Conclusion

Page | 85

6.1 Introduction
This chapter form objective 6 of this research, by deriving conclusions
over the sustainable approach over the urban open space by means of
urban agriculture to enable self sufficiency in the urban food system and
also enhancing community cohesion. This chapter reflects the research
arrives to aim and objectives and how it answers the research question.
In addition, it also evaluates the research methodology, how it has been
achieved and what further research can be undertaken in this area in the
future.

6.2 Key findings:

Through literature analysis relevant to urban agriculture and sustainable
approach over the urban open space needs same stream of governmental
and planning system. In separate both look strong, but when it comes in
combination, urban agriculture looks bit more optimistic in nature, still
criteria's over the localized urban food system and community cohesion is
accepted. And there is no regulation of urban agriculture

among the

planning body, which is actually a weakness of the research but through

personal interest and investment people yields good. Theoretical aspects
of urban agriculture is in most case an enforced concept in the urban
context, responses for the interviews ranging over both extremes from
common public. Still, most urban agriculture practitioners in London are
having trouble with finding volunteers throughout the seasons.
The feedback received from the professionals are bit hopeful to the
research, though there are so many contrary and priorities were put
ahead of urban agriculture in the context of a sustainable approach. And
in industrialized countries, the approach of the professionals is different
from the developing and under developed country, still there is lot of
opportunities over urban agriculture to become one important factor of
the planning body. Developers and individuals prefers extra benefits in

Page | 86

terms of tax, reduction in council fee, etc. if they invest over urban
agriculture.
In terms of Food miles and localization of food products, most of the
imports from New Zeland is cost effective as well as with less carbon
footprints because the process involved there is more effective and
efficient than here in the UK, but that doesn't apply to all the importers.
From the management perspective, there is a lot of advices coming from
so many bodies, including NGO's and profitable organization, private
organization are getting benefited because of urban agriculture products
since they are fresh and healthy and made out of an organic process, the
cost of the product is high compared to the conventional food products
found in the chain of supermarkets. And there is high demand for the
organic food products ranging from vegetable crops to meats. Agriculture
practice into the urban context isn't the happening scenario, but having
an approach of adaptive planning and design open area considering future
is the best way.

6.3 Achieving Aim & Objectives

This research posed following question:

How to vitalize available urban open space in the UK through urban

agriculture and how to deliver self sufficiency in the urban food
system and community cohesion?

To answer the question, the aim was developed to identify the features of
urban agriculture and its management techniques and develop guidelines
to derive a set of design and management process of urban agriculture.
Series of Objective were formulated to achieve the aim, objective 1 and 2
developed a framework for the analysis of the theoretical and practical
aspects involve in urban agriculture, the urban food system and the
management process which was discussed in chapter 2 and 3. As a result
of the framework, set of design and management guidelines were
Page | 87

proposed from the literature and case study analysis

and also through

secondary source study, which is applied in a design based method which

is objective 3 of the research.
Following the completion of the guidelines, to meet objective 4, interviews
were conducted with both professionals and academics. these interviews
were conducted not only to estimate the effectiveness of the guidelines,
but also to get feedback and advice on the process and requirements that
supports the research aim. The feedback obtained support the production
of chapter 5, which reported on the results obtained from the interviews
and even this chapter support objective 5 since it provides a conclusion.

6.4 Limitation of the Research:

There were several limitations to this research. Firstly engineering details
and spatial requirement for the crops were not considered, which couldn't
come under the guidelines for testing. And the design and management
guidelines were restricted to the basic structure of urban agriculture
requirements, hence spatial planning and improvisation of planning
couldn't be done. Secondly, cost estimation into urban agriculture right
from the planning to execution is always major question even during the
interviews which couldn't be furnished because of limitation of time.
Awareness among the peoples about urban agriculture is very less and
even some have entirely different perspectives over the concept, so
making them understand during interviews itself takes time and people
lose interest which reflects in their feedback.

6.5 Significance if Research:

This research is significant for a reason that it involves more futurist ideas
over the planning and designing. The understanding of urban population
growth will lead to shortage of arable land for cultivation in future, and
the need for urban agriculture would play a key role in planning then. The
purpose of the research is to determine whether vitalization of urban open
space could be possible by means of urban agriculture and also how to
Page | 88

deliver self sufficiency in the urban food system and to enhance

community cohesion. The intended outcome of this research establishes
research aim that urban open space could be vitalized through urban
farming.

6.6 Further Research:

Further research could be done on the same aim, to fill the gaps and fulfil
the left out theoretical and practical understandings of urban agriculture,
this would mean firstly conducting further literature review to bridge any
gaps in this research that were out of scope. And as listed in limit of
scope, further research could also be done over the costing and
engineering aspects of urban agriculture.

Page | 89

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Appendix:
TDE Form E1

Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment

Ethics Review Form E1

Page | 93

This form should be completed by the Principal Investigator / Supervisor / Student undertaking a
research project which involves human participants. The form will identify whether a more detailed E2
form needs to be submitted to the Faculty Research Ethics Officer.
Before completing this form, please refer to the University Code of Practice for the Ethical
Standards for Research involving Human Participants, available at
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/Research/Research-ethics/, and to any guidelines provided by relevant
academic or professional associations.
It is the Principal Investigator / Supervisor who is responsible for exercising appropriate professional
judgement in this review. Note that all necessary forms should be fully completed and signed before
fieldwork commences.
Project Title: The Vitalization Of Available Urban Open Space In The UK Through Urban
Agriculture
Principal Investigator / Supervisor: Dr. Jon Cooper
Student Investigator: Iyaneshpandian Chandrasekaran
Yes

1.

Does the study involve participants who are unable to give informed
consent? (e.g. children, people with learning disabilities, unconscious
patients)

2.

If the study will involve participants who are unable to give informed
consent (e.g. children under the age of 16, people with learning
disabilities), will you be unable to obtain permission from their parents or
guardians (as appropriate)?

3.

Will the study require the cooperation of a gatekeeper for initial access to
groups or individuals to be recruited? (e.g. students, members of a selfhelp group, employees of a company, residents of a nursing home)

4.

Are there any problems with the participants right to remain anonymous,
or to have the information they give not identifiable as theirs?

5.

Will it be necessary for the participants to take part in the study without
their knowledge/consent at the time? (eg, covert observation of people in
non-public places?)

6.

Will the study involve discussion of or responses to questions the

participants might find sensitive? (e.g. own drug use, own traumatic
experiences)

7.

Are drugs, placebos or other substances (e.g. food substances,

vitamins) to be administered to the study participants?

8.

Will blood or tissue samples be obtained from participants?

9.

Is pain or more than mild discomfort likely to result from the study?

No

Page | 94

10.

Could the study induce psychological stress or anxiety?

11.

Will the study involve prolonged or repetitive testing of participants?

12.

Will financial inducements (other than reasonable expenses and

compensation for time) be offered to participants?

13.

Will deception of participants be necessary during the study?

14.

Will the study involve NHS patients, staff, carers or premises?

If you have answered no to all the above questions, send the completed form to your Module Leader
and keep the original in case you need to submit it with your work.
If you have answered yes to any of the above questions, you should complete the Form E2 available
at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/Research/Research-ethics/Ethics-review-forms/
and, together with this E1 Form, email it to the Faculty Research Ethics Officer, whose name can be
found at
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/Research/Research-ethics/Research-ethics-officers/
If you answered yes to any of questions 1-13 and yes to question 14, an application must be
submitted to the appropriate NHS research ethics committee.

Signed:

Principal
Investigator
/Supervisor

Signed:

Student Investigator

Date:

23/10/2015

Page | 95