Dr. Donald Cole, a public health researcher at U of T, travelled to Kampala, Uganda and Hanoi, Vietnam this summer as part of an international project aimed at understanding the benefits and risks of growing food in cities.
Urban agriculture is a frequent practice in poorer countries. It takes many forms, from people raising pigs and growing vegetables in their backyards to community collectives working to make swamps and abandoned lands into productive small farms.
The practice gives poor city-dwellers access to nutritious produce that would be otherwise unaffordable. It offers a small source of income to the (mostly) women who can tend their crops while staying close to home and tending to their families. Growing food close to home permits “an integrated set of activities that revolve around the household in circumstances when there are not a lot of formal jobs,” said Cole.
Urban farming conservesenergy and pollution is avoided because food is not transported long distances between producer and consumer. Urban agriculture can be a powerful means of improving local economies and environments.
But there are problems. The poor people who tend to practice urban agriculture often live on contaminated land or draw water from polluted rivers. In a big city, even the air can leave a toxic film on leaves and fruit.
“There are real reasons that public health authorities should be concerned and yet there are also real benefits so that you don’t want to just get rid of [agriculture in cities],” said Cole.
Cole travelled to Kampala in June and to Hanoi in July to begin studying the trade-offs between nutritional, economic, social and environmental advantages on one side and serious health hazards on the other.
“The purpose of the project is to scope out the health benefits and risks associated [with urban agriculture] and hopefully to mitigate the risks and improve the benefits.”
Teamwork
Part of the research team working with Cole is U of T’s Dr. Miriam Diamond, who is an expert in the toxic films left on surfaces by polluted air. In Kampala, doctoral student Grace Nabulo is working to understand how plants take up metals from water and soil. Cole is himself a physician specializing in public health. All three will collaborate with scientists from the International Potato Centre, a non-profit research organization.
Cole brings years of experience studying agriculture and pesticide use to the project. “I’ve been working in Latin America for about two decades, mostly studying pesticides in agriculture and health,” he said. “Pesticides do not seem to be a concern in Kampala, because most people are too poor to buy them. That’s in contrast to Hanoi, where the urban agriculture does use a fair number of pesticides and there is real concern about residues.”
Trade-offs
According to Cole, urban farming is “a trade-off situation, with access to food versus biological or chemical contamination. A lot of people grow right along roadsides, so there are problems with pollution deposition. Another common site is wetlands, where untreated industrial waste goes into the river and then into the wetland. We now know through Grace [Nabulo]’s work that this pollution does go into the tubers,” like yams and sweet potatoes.
But even though some of the dangers are known, for many poor people in Kampala the choice is clear—they would rather die later, after many years of eating contaminated food, than now from starvation.
Sustainability
Cole is interested in long-term strategies. “I have been looking at sustainability indicators, ecological footprints, those kind of concepts. There is a notion within food system analysis called ‘food miles’ that measures the unsustainability of a certain set of food supply relationships and production relationships according to what distance and what amount of fossil fuels are required to feed a group of people.
“In Vietnam, in England and in various other places during wars, they really increased urban food production and reduced the distance travelled and therefore the likelihood of getting their supply lines bombed.
“It shows that there is something to be said, particularly among groups that are vulnerable in terms of income, for urban agriculture projects. They can fulfil both social and nutritional functions, as well as in the long run improving the sustainability of the city.
“Many cities produce huge amounts of organic waste that often go the landfill sites. We can use that organic matter as a resource for gardening and for farming. That reduces municipal disposal costs and at the same time increases inputs into the urban ecosystem. All that makes a lot of sense,” said Cole.
