Visitors to the 93rd Annual Agriculture Outlook Forum were able to see a wide-range of vegetables during their field trip to the University of District of Columbia (UDC) Urban Farm in Beltsville, MD, Feb. 22, 2017. UDC is one of the nation's only land grant universities in an urban environment offering gardening skills to residents and business expertise to aspiring urban farmers. The farm has greenhouses/hoop houses with winter crop production, solar energy, composting, irrigation, and aquaponic systems. (USDA Photo by Preston Keres)
Urban agriculture refers to various practices of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in urban term also applies to the area activities of animal husbandry, aquaculture, beekeeping, and horticulture in an urban context. Urban agriculture is distinguished from peri-urban agriculture, which takes place in rural areas at the edge of suburbs. Urban agriculture can appear at varying levels of economic and social development. It can involve a movement of organic growers, "foodies" and "locavores", who seek to form social networks founded on a shared ethos of nature and community networks can develop by way of formal institutional support, becoming integrated into local town planning as a "transition town" movement for sustainable urban development. For others, food security, nutrition, and income generation are key motivations for the practice. In either case, the more direct access to fresh vegetable, fruit, and meat products that may be realised through urban agriculture can improve food security and food safety while decreasing food miles, leading to lower greenhouse gas emissions, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation.
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Location: USA
Photo credit: © American Photo Archive / Alamy / Afripics
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