Food and the city: exploring land resource for urban agriculture by Poppea Daniel

Food and the city: exploring land resource for urban agriculture Poppea Daniel

The reintegration of food into cities is an imperative for city resilience. This work reviews the current food system and a sustainable alternative and makes the case for urban agriculture. Using Glasgow as an example I take an inventory of urban land resource in four sample areas, considering interactions with housing and social context, and examine relevant urban agriculture case studies. Drawing on this information I make a case for Glasgowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public agencies to engage in top-down enabling and spatial interventions.

Motivations A better food system...4 Why urban agriculture?...6 Urban land...9

Explorations The Glasgow context...12 Methodology...13 Area profiles...16

Conclusions Propositions for Glasgow...48 Conclusion...54 References...56

Overview If we are to eat, someone has to do the farming, somewhere. This is true whether you live in the city, or the country, or somewhere in between. The (re)integration of food into the psyche and fabric of cities is an ecological, social and cultural imperative, which also has the potential to be a key tool in the making and shaping of places.

of urban land capacity for food production, considering its relationship with housing and social context. I then take a step back from Glasgow to consider a handful of local, national and international case studies for urban agriculture at a variety of scales, calibrating them to Glasgowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s context and drawing lessons.

Starting at the biggest scale, this work takes a brief look at the state of the current global food system, and considers what a more sustainable, resilient and equitable food system might look like.

Finally, using these case studies and broader research, I suggest what urban agriculture interventions might look like in the city, exploring form-based solutions but always aware of the limitations of physical design on its own to create change.

Part of that being agriculture within cities, I then review literature on the dimensions in which urban agriculture can be productive (and the links between these dimensions). I explore urban land resource in general, and how its relationship with neighbourhoods and surrounding housing typologies informs how food production can or should be integrated, in existing places and in new development.

I argue that the conversation about urban food growing needs to shift away from one of supply and demand for a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nicheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; activity to a fundamental change in the way cities take responsibility for feeding themselves, including their most disadvantaged, in the way cities make use of their land, and in the way people living in urban areas see their relationship with food and the natural world.

Third, I examine the case of Glasgow, with its particular policy, health and urban context. I take a detailed inventory

Motivations: A better food system

Motivations A better food system Food systems are the way in which we produce, consume, distribute and dispose of food. Food systems have economic, social and environmental importance and are implicated in the organisation of urban life and space. We should aspire to a new food system which is sustainable, resilient and equitable.

Not resilient

Resilient

• System is a tree (Alexander, 1965)

• System is a semi-lattice (Alexander, 1965). Nature’s true

• The trunk feeds all - if trunk damaged or severed, we’re in trouble

• The trunk is interested only in profit

complexity.

• Resembles a leaf: if the big vein is cut, the leaf survives. Other parts can compensate (Salat and Boudic, 2012)

• Vulnerable to acute shocks (extreme weather, conflict)

• Complex, interconnected, diverse and multi-scalar in all

• The most vulnerable suffer most

• “Localised, personal, flexible, multi-directional” (Steel,

and chronic stresses (exhaustion of fossil fuels)

• Inhuman scale • Little diversity - monoculture • High reliance on chemical pesticides • High reliance on imports, including indigenous, inseason food. UK imports 50% of all vegetables and 95% of all fruits (Rodriguez, 2016)

• Food delivered ‘just in time’ with no reserves • Supermarkets have stranglehold on food infrastructure (Steel, 2013 p66)

• Connection with food lost

elements of system 2013 p310)

• Polyculture, with variety of scales, intensities and locations of production

• Largely organic • End of supermarket dominance - different length supply

chains including direct farm sales, markets, wholesale coops, surplus sharing

• The knowledge to cook seasonally

Motivations: A better food system Unsustainable

Sustainable

• Linear system

• Circular system

• More energy goes in than we get out in calories (Steel, 2013 p50)

• Energy is wasted when food is wasted (30% of food bought in the UK is thrown away)

• Depleted soils • Lost biodiversity and genetic variety through monoculture

• Waste is a resource • People are well-fed while natural resources are not depleted

• Biodiversity and genetic variety preserved • Livelihoods in agriculture and food supply sustained • Limited emissions through shorter supply chains

• Climate-changing emissions from farming, shipping, storage, packaging, refrigeration

Inequitable

Equitable

• More than enough food in the world yet millions are

• Less vulnerability to shocks helps the most vulnerable

starving and millions more, dangerously obese - both malnourishment

• Unsustainability and lack of resilience hits poorest hardest

• 3x cheaper in UK to eat diet of processed foods than healthy balanced diet (The Food Foundation, 2016)

• Poorer people lack access, tools and knowledge to create good meals from scratch

• Diversification in producer-consumer relations alters balance of available food

• Empowers everyone to be involved in all parts the food system, including growing, retailing, cooking

• Living wages allow people to buy good food • People equipped with knowledge to use that food • Alternative food systems are a right, not a privilege

• Proportionally more income spent on food by poorer families

• Alternative food systems are a privilege, not a right

Motivations: Why urban agriculture?

Why urban agriculture? Part of the diverse, multi-scalar, resilient and sustainable food system will be the development of local food systems. They’re not going to feed everyone all the time - but everyone should be able to draw on local food systems which use alternative agricultural practices as well as global food systems (Fraser, 2012)

of the project. UA is not a magic solution, but has the potential to be transformative.

Local food systems which feed cities involve making appropriate use of land resources inside of cities. Urban agriculture (UA) should be seen as a small but important part of an agro-ecological farming system.

Urban agriculture’s ability to contribute to the environmental and ecological sustainability of urban food systems is highly contextual, varying by the location, product and method (Goldstein et al, 2016), but potentially significant.

In thinking about UA within local food systems, I draw heavily on the concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (Viljoen and Bohn, 2016): urban agriculture as an essential component of urban infrastructure. CPULs are open landscapes, productive economically, environmentally, socially and spatially, which traverse the city and ultimately relate to rural surroundings (ibid). They build on the existing characteristics of open space in cities, providing space for agricultural production. CPULs are scale-aware: a mixed economy of connected urban agriculture, from the small scale to the large scale, from the community to the commercial, from the low tech to the high tech. At all scales, people living in cities are encouraged to observe and interact with processes increasingly labelled as rural, re-establishing the relationship between life and the essential processes which support it.

A mixed economy Figure 1 attempts to synthesise some of UA’s diversity, focusing on physical form, destination of produce and common motivations1. I briefly summarise some of the theorised and documented benefits of urban agriculture2. These benefits are only possible dimensions of productivity, and the multiple dimensions interact with each other and appear in various combinations depending on the type, scale, and motivations

1 When exploring case studies later, I expand the categorisation to include land, organisation and management, scale, actors, and dimensions of productivity. 2 Drawing on comprehensive literature reviews carried out by others, especially the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program’s synthesis of commonly cited social, health and economic impacts (Golden, 2013), and Goldstein’s (2016) taxonomy of resource profiles for ecological impacts.

Review of benefits Broadly climate and ecology

Urban food production can provide in situ urban ecosystem services (Goldstein, 2016) in several ways:

• Increased local biodiversity and extended habitat ranges (Havaligi, 2011; Hoffman, 2007)

• Urban heat island mitigation (Obendorfer et al, 2007; Li et al, 2014)

• Reduced flood risk through stormwater attenuation (Obendorfer et al, 2007; Nemeth and Langhorst, 2014)

• Improvements in soil quality, including reduction in soil pollutants (Gleissmann, 2015; (Brown et al, 2016)

Global environmental benefits are much more difficult to verify due to their scientific complexity and larger scale, but cited benefits include:

• Carbon sequestration through photosynthesis (Sida, 2003)

• Reductions in embodied carbon impacts through

reduced transport, packaging and losses along the food chain (Kulak et al, 2013), dependent on crop choice and current carbon impact

• If UA replaces land used elsewhere, reduction in ecological footprint through more efficient use of land

• Global biodiversity improvements and soil quality through return of marginal land to nature (Knowd and Mason, 2006)

Broadly health + wellbeing UA has been shown to

• Increase fresh food access (Viljoen and Bohn, 2011;

Armstrong, 2000) and act as a catalyst for wider food access strategies (SPUR, 2012)

• give nutritional benefits, with increased fruit and veg

Motivations: Why urban agriculture?

Home gardening

Food cultivation at home.

Enivornmental

Economic / Commercial

Social, heath + well-being

Wider food security

Household food security

Common motivations

Teaching

Commons

Sale (2)

(2) Both for profit or at cost price, at the farm gate or through associated retail systems (eg. co-ops, farmers markets)

Collective (1)

(1) Collective consumption including consumption by volunteers who cultivate the land, through community supported agriculture (CSA) whereby people (who may or may not be involved in the actual growing) subscribe for a given share of the harvest, and consumption by institutions

Destination of produce

Individual

Notes:

Plot-based gardens

Land is subdivided into plots (standard allotment in UK is 250m2) and individuals or groups tend them more or less as they wish.

Community gardens

Communally-managed and cultivated land, usually by volunteers. Often double up as community gathering spaces.

Market gardens

Diverse fruit and vegetable crops cultivated by a small group for commercial sale, concerned with efficiency. Around 0.5ha in size.

Orchards

Planting of trees on land to get a crop of fruit and nuts.

Edible landscaping

Landscaping (in parks, along streets etc) which uses edible shrubs. Includes food forests, which are grown according to permaculture principles

School gardens

Similar to community gardens, but attached to schools and used in education

Peri-urban agriculture

Small and medium scale food cultivation on the fringe around cities for commercial sale.

Figure 1.â&#x20AC;&#x201A;Basic typology of urban agriculture

Motivations: Why urban agriculture? consumption which lasts (Viljoen and Bohn, 2011; McCormack et al, 2010).

• increase more healthy consumption through presence of farmers markets, including for low-income consumers, contributing to food justice (ibid)

• Involve food literacy programs in some way (SPUR, 2012), breaking down barriers to healthy diets.

• Help prevent disease (numerous studies) and improve general physical health through sustained physical activity (Soga, Cox et al, 2016).

UA also contributes to the ‘greening’ of cities which has been shown to have significant wellbeing benefits (WHO, 2017; Soga, Cox et al, 2016), and to reduce urban blight where there are high levels of vacancy and dereliction (Bradley and Galt, 2014; Burkholder, 2012). Broadly social, cultural and political Social benefits seen in the UK community garden movement include social cohesion and inclusion, the empowering co-production of space, and fostering pride and identification with a community (Iles, 2016). UA can also be sites of subversion in the city, building political capital to challenge existing food and property systems, by creating small alternative food networks characterised by social and environmental values instead of or as well as by efficiency and profit (Galt, Gray and Hurley, 2014). UA builds human capital through:

• learning about the production of food, and of wider food systems (Flora and Bregendal, 2012)

• sharing of knowledge which might otherwise have been lost by providing the physical space in which a collective memory of food growing can be rebuilt and transmitted through generations (Barthel et al, 2013)

• Other

skills development, including general employability skills, construction skills, cooking skills, and youth leadership work (Holland, 2004; Bradley & Galt).

UA also serves to connect urban populations who engage in it (through participation in growing, through buying direct, or through education) to the wider food system and the multidimensional impacts it has on life (SPUR, 2012). Broadly economic Jobs can be indirectly created through increases in human capital, and also directly, in the production, distribution and retailing of food (Kobayashi et al, 2010). . UA can improve the economic viability of small-scale farming through providing guaranteed or reliable markets with very short

supply chains (Feenstra, 2007), allowing them to expand. In areas where fresh produce is not generally available, UA can create access to more healthy affordable foods, furthering food justice. Where a critical mass of those producing their own or purchasing the produce of UA is reached, one study showed that supermarket prices for equivalent produce in the area were also reduced (Larsen and Gilliland, 2009). Financial savings to public agencies responsible for maintenance and upkeep are frequently cited. These savings can come from:

• a reduction in vandalism and dumping (perhaps

stemming from a greater feeling of ownership over spaces)

• actual adoption of public spaces by individuals,

organisations or enterprise which take responsibility for upkeep

• reduction in costly mowing regimes (SPUR, 2012).

Motivations: Urban land

Urban land Land is a fundamental resource for food systems, within and outside the city. Land is necessary not just for the actual growing of crops, but for the extension services which facilitate all the practicalities of an urban food system, including harvesting, storage, composting, distribution and retail. Urban food growing is completely contingent on this natural capital - land - and therefore on the complex links between other forms of capital which are necessary to access that land. For example, social and cultural capital (education, confidence) may provide the basis for the political capital (ability to engage effectively with public authorities) needed to access natural capital (Miller, 2015)1. The vision for a sustainable food system is not one in which every corner of urban land is cultivated, but one in which the land in cities is seen as a resource which can be productive across many dimensions. Food production is one of those drivers of productivity. The decision of how much land to allocate to various activities in a city is a complex optimisation problem (Mok et al, 2014), but when attempting to solve such a problem, the question of how to feed that city cannot be entirely pushed beyond its boundaries. Agriculture can be conceptualised as a complementary, not totally competing, urban land use.

Capitalist logic - land barriers to urban agriculture ‘Opportunity cost’ is one component of the ‘true’ economic cost of any choice which involves the use of limited resources: the cost of using a resource for one use compared to the foregone alternative. Cost and value are complex concepts, but in a capitalist model we are most often talking about financial value and investment. In the city, land for growing food is squeezed out as capitalist development seeks to convert present land uses to more lucrative uses (Wekerle and Classens, 2015). This is true even when there is a lot of land, or demand for land is low. The aspiration of being able to capitalise on the future value of land is sufficient, often resulting in a lack of security for uses such as urban agriculture. In the same way, land in peri-urban areas is lost to food growing, released from the ‘green belt’ for housing - a more financially lucrative use. UA as an urban land use may also suffer from an image 1 After securing access to land, of course, use of that land for food growing is also contingent on other types of capital, including economic capital (time and money).

problem. Land for food growing in cities remains an anathema to many people, who see it as a sign of decline rather than of progress2 -where ‘development’ is even a remote possibility, ‘there cannot be agriculture’ (Pothukuchi, 2017). The residual allergy to the presence of agriculture in cities in the global north is also partially a consequence of a long history of rural-urban separation - one in which the cultural relationship of urban populations with cultivated land and food systems has been almost entirely lost and ‘urban’ and ‘agriculture’ are seen as irreconcilable opposites. Some progress towards system change and considerable cultural shifts may be achieved by changes in city policy and planning for UA. Assuming land for urban agriculture is made available, it matters where that land is and how it’s used, who has access to it and on what basis. Paying insufficient attention to these dimensions risks exacerbating existing spatial and social inequalities in access to land and fresh food (Horst et al, 2017).

Categorising urban land Work on urban land in the context of food growing in Glasgow has identified four different key types of land which predominate in the city (NVA & ERZ, 2009) described in Figure 2. I believe these key types describe fairly well the land present in all urban areas. There are two other important categories of land.

• Peri-urban lands are critical areas in the growth of

cities, and subject to rapid transformation, playing an important mediating role between the city and the country (Opitz et al, 2016). Open land here may be nominally protected from development, but the logic of the ‘opportunity cost’ means it is increasingly lost to suburban housing development.

• Urban hardscape: the categories in Figure 2 largely

consider urban open green space. Much of the city’s physical footprint is paved (roads, surface car parks). Streets are arguably the single biggest component of urban open space.

2 ‘Progress’ being itself tied to the prevailing economic logic of sustained growth.

Motivations: Urban land

Current use

Shape / size

Constraints

Vacant and derelict land Not in use.

Hugely varied. From single plots to disused industrial sites.

Varies May be constrained by previous use, which limit its being brought back into use without remediation. Unknown or mixed ownership may constrain use.

May be used for informal Often underused activities, such as ‘amenity green space’ dog walking, but - landscaped (usually use is often illmown grass) areas defined or unclear, ‘providing visual amenity as is perceived or separating different ownership. building or land uses’ for various reasons. Common in post-war social housing schemes in the UK, often has little relationship to surrounding buildings.

Varied - comes in (often awkward) shapes and sizes, from large expanses around tower blocks to small grass verges or traffic islands

‘Development’ of this land is not usually allowed, though this doesn’t exclude other uses which retain an open character.

Duration of Formerly developed land. vacancy and May or may not have dereliction varies. structures on it (derelict Some vacancy is a or otherwise). Closely natural part of the related to brownfield evolution of cities. land, a broader term which also includes land which is partially occupied or utilised

Green desert

Housing From an urban design perspective, it also matters what’s around that land for growing. This land doesn’t exist in isolation, and given that the immediate aims of urban agriculture go far beyond simply maximising yield, the way in which people interact with space for growing is vital. People live their domestic lives in and around housing, so the spatial configuration of food production in relation to housing is key. We need to be aware of how the availability of land (not forgetting access and ownership too) is related to housing typologies, because this affects the type of food growing which is or could be happening (which is itself a function of other inputs). Historical housing typologies shape to a

Ownership

Mixed, but can usually be assumed to be in some form of public ownership.

Access

Varies

Access is open, though in social housing estates it is often substituting for defined private or enclosed communal garden space.

large extent the current land resource in and around cities, and its suitability for growing. An area of the city dominated by high-rise flats built after the 1960s, for example, is likely to be surrounded by a large amount of land whose purpose, ownership and management is poorly defined. An area dominated by detached family housing in a suburban setting may have very little open land beyond private gardens, and be likely to require capacity-based (as opposed to form-based) interventions for growing, since land is more or less locked into private use. The retrofitting of existing places will clearly play an important role in integrating food production, but the designer’s role should not be limited to ‘fixing up’ poorly

Motivations: Urban land

Current use

Shape / size

Constraints

Ownership

Access

Varies. May be very heavily used for many different things, or not at all, or somewhere in between. Use is likely to vary with the privacy of the space, and whether it is shared.

Variable - from a very small

Choice on how land is used are made by private owner(s) or tenant(s)

Closely related to tenure and to housing typology (themselves closely related)

Depending on housing typology, may be shared between several dwellings or divided into individual private plots, each associated with a single dwelling. Front garden space forms important part of the transitional edge between the private and public domains. Back gardens are squarely in the private domain (even if that domain is shared).

Varies, and where there is a ‘use’ it Land associated with doesn’t necessarily some kind of publicpreclude other uses sector function or service. e.g. public park Includes space associated may be used for with schools, hospitals, recreation, sport, local government allotments. buildings, and public parks.

Very variable. Ranging from the setback of a public building to large public parks. Some may currently be hardscaped.

Access may be constrained e.g. on school sites

Land in public ownership (e.g. local authority, NHS)

Depends on what the land is associated with. Schools may restrict access to non-pupils and staff and restrict access outside of school hours and term dates. Access to public parks may be constrained by policy (e.g. locking parks after dark, or not lighting parks).

Private gardens

Enclosed open space associated with housing

Underused civic land

Figure 2. Types of urban land and their basic characteristics

conceived and planned space for better use (Trancik, 1986). Urban food and the more sustainable food systems in which it can play a part is institutionalised when it’s incorporated into the planning and design of places in new housing developments. We can use knowledge about how land in and around existing housing is configured, owned and used to contribute to better spatial food planning in future developments. This knowledge will also help us understand the limits of physical planning in changing land use, and highlight where other types of capital are needed to activate spaces.

Explorations: the Glasgow context

Explorations The Glasgow context Population: c. 600,000 Area: c15,000 hectares Glasgow is an interesting case for urban agriculture. It has sufficient similarities in form for it to be a relevant starting point for other post-industrial cities across the UK and in Europe. It has less development pressure and more land than some other cities which are growing much faster. This arguably gives it scope to focus on more innovative, holistic development models. A lot of the social, health and economic problems Glasgow may be well-served by UA, if done right, and with the right focus.

History Glasgow’s population is half what it was in 1960. The number of households is expected to grow somewhat by 16% in the next 25 years (Understanding Glasgow). Glasgow’s dockyards were badly bombed during the second world war, industrial decline has led to widespread vacancy and dereliction, and the city has had its fair share of ‘visionary’ modernist planning.

Urban form and the land it sits on An apparently limited mix of housing typologies conceals a good amount of variation in the land available, with different degrees of privacy, publicness and accessibility. Over 30% of Glasgow’s land area is green but very little of this land is currently ‘productive’ and the quantity hides considerable variation in quality and geographical concentration. 12% of greenspace in Glasgow is ‘amenity greenspace’, compared to just 4% in Edinburgh (ibid). Compared to other local authorities in the area, Glasgow has a low proportion of natural greenspace. Both have implications for biodiversity.

Social, economic, environmental context Deprivation in Glasgow is multi-dimensional. Almost half

of the city’s residents live in the 20% most deprived areas of Scotland, and only 4.4% live in the 10% least deprived. 24% of Glaswegians adults are obese, and less than 20% eat 5 or more portions of fruit and vegetables each day. In the most deprived areas, obesity is far higher, and fruit and veg intake much lower. There are wide geographic health inequalities, closely related to socio-economic inequalities, with life expectancy for men almost 14 years lower in some areas than in others. Mental well-being is considerably lower than in other Scottish cities. The number of people in Scotland accessing emergency food aid has been increasing (ibid). Large areas of Glasgow are at risk of surface water, river and coastal flooding (SEPA). Biodiversity is at risk. Glasgow has low recycling rates, and high rates of food waste. The council recently introduced a city-wide curbside and tenement food waste collection scheme, but the quality of compost produced is poor, destined for large-scale agriculture rather than for productive re-use by the city.

What has Glasgow been doing? Since 2011, the Stalled Spaces initiative has helped to reactivate V&D land while development isn’t happening. The project has seen strong representation from food growing initiatives, mostly community gardens focussed on health and well-being. Despite much positive work, these projects have limited permanence. They are at the mercy of landowners who want to turn the land over to a more lucrative use, and reliant on grant funding, personalities, and armies of volunteers. Clydeplan (2016) goes so far as to commit to “greening” as an option for “soft use” for sites which aren’t developable in the medium or even long term, but nothing more visionary. The focus on Glasgow is on temporary reuse of vacant and derelict land until a ‘better use’ comes along. There are as yet no signs that amenity land might be considered a productive resource, or that land might be turned over to productive uses on any kind of permanent basis. Alternative food systems outside of community gardens are very small in reach - engaging in them remains a privileged lifestyle choice.

Explorations: Methodology The Our Resilient Glasgow strategy commits the city to place-based development which helps the city cope with both chronic stresses and acute shocks (GCC, 2016). It seems telling that in the whole strategy (100 pages), the word ‘food’ - let alone ‘food growing’ - only features twice. The city has not yet acknowledged food as its lifeblood.

basis for conversations at different levels about urban agriculture: for the council, paired with a knowledge of current ownership and management practices, it can give a clearer idea of the type of land resource which is there, and in which circumstances they might play an enabling role for urban food growing or a more direct, physical one.

Positively, recent work with the Scottish Government produced a report which tackles the right to food, and the notion that more resilient food systems have a role to play. This could trickle down into local government policy and action.

For neighbourhoods down to the street or close, it might be the start of a conversation about how land resource is currently used, and combined with other qualitative local knowledge, whether there is scope for or interest in using it differently. It could also be useful once an identified need or desire for more urban growing opportunities is established.

The Community Empowerment Act obliges Glasgow to produce an urban growing strategy. This is an opportunity to think more widely about the food system and how urban growing could contribute to changing it for the better.

Methodology Bohn and Viljoen (2012) identify 4 key actions particularly relevant to planning and design professions within a multidisciplinary approach, which are needed in order to coherently integrate productive landscapes into cities. In this work I focus on two: ‘Inventory of urban capacity’ and ‘Bottom Up + Top Down’.

Understanding land resource (and more) through mapping and typologies I work under the hypothesis that different types of land resource are likely to be found in different proportions, at least partially as a function of dominant built form, and that the balance between land, housing typologies and socioeconomic factors will affect suitable growing typologies. I examine urban capacity in four sample areas in Glasgow, taking adetailed look at the land resource in each, and making links between the type and quantity of land resources available, housing types and local context. Through this examination, and through key examples of urban agriculture practice around the UK and internationally, I consider the types and forms of food growing interventions which might be appropriate to Glasgow’s particular context. The approach does not calculate the amount of land which could or should be put into food production, likely yields, or suitably of each particular parcel of land for food growing. But the mapping and typology approach provides the

Taking an inventory of urban capacity starts with identifying and mapping urban space (Bohn and Viljoen, 2012), but must also include stakeholder and managerial capacities. Although the scope of this work did not include a detailed investigation of such capacities, by overlaying physical data with socio-economic data, we begin to get an idea of whose capacity might be relevant - while land is more or less finite, stakeholder and management capacity can be increased.

Existing work about urban capacity The Sow and Grow Everywhere Report (NVA, ERZ, 2009) took a broad look at urban capacity across 4 main land types (previously discussed) in the Glasgow Metropolitan Region. It detailed a strategy for bringing vacant and derelict land into interim use for food growing. This work more or less became the Glasgow City Council’s Stalled Spaces initiative (previously discussed). By focusing back on other land types, I attempt to move the conversation about urban agriculture in Glasgow beyond the temporary and towards it being an integral part of the city’s green and social infrastructure. Glasgow City Council1 claims to be currently working on mapping under-used land around the city which may or may not feed into the urban food growing strategy they are obliged to produce under the new Community Empowerment Bill. In 2011 greenspace Scotland produced a map of urban green space. which has now been updated to cover the whole of the UK and to improve categorisation2. The new data also includes geo-referenced access points, which could be used when assessing the permeability and accessibility of 1 From conversations with GCC’s allotment team. 2 Categorised according to open space typologies in Scottish guidance. Updated data was not available at the time of writing.

Explorations: Methodology

Figure 3. Four 1km² study areas shown in context. sites. While not specifically aimed at an understanding of urban land capacity for food growing, it provides a huge leg up for councils, organisations and individuals who are thinking about how land might be used differently. The overview which this map can provide at the city scale will be particularly valuable when attempting create and improve green networks.

Area selection I select 4 areas of 1km² (100ha) within the Glasgow city boundary to study in detail. The criteria for choosing these four areas is influenced by accessibility (so that I do not rely entirely on aerial imagery for classification) and at least some prior knowledge of an area. They are chosen so that the variety in Glasgow’s urban form is represented, with one form dominant in each, as well as variation in privacy, access and character which is hidden behind similar housing typologies.

Mapping There are three elements to the mapping process in each area. 1 Categorisation of land into the 4 main land types identified by the SAGE report. I combine data from Scotland’s greenspace map and the Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey with examination of Google Earth satellite imagery and local knowledge, to categorise the open space in each area into the 4 main land types: (1) Vacant and derelict land, (2) Green desert, (3) Private gardens and (4) Underused public land. For each area, I calculate the proportion of the study area in each category, as well as the total proportion of land in the area which is built up and/or hardscaped. This step allows us to make comparisons between the amount and form of land in different areas of the city, and relate that to the total built up area.

Explorations: Area profiles 2 Mapping of dominant housing typologies Using aerial imagery, local knowledge and by visiting the areas, I identify and record the different housing typologies present. Since the areas are chosen based on the built form they contain, the results are not new, but the classification into simple housing typologies helps to clarify the information. I cross-reference this with 2011 Census data on accommodation type. 3 Mapping of socio-economic data I use Census data to roughly estimate population density across the sample areas (people / ha), and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation data as a proxy for socio-economic context, paying particular attention to health indices. I also use geo-demographic classifications based on 2011 Census data to further the context and its relationship to the built environment.

Explorations: Area profiles

Area profiles Milton

Figure 4. Terraced houses with individual private gardens, associated with green desert

Milton is one of Glasgow’s post war peripheral housing estates, built on open land (some former opencast mines) as part of slum clearance efforts. Similar examples can be found on a larger scale in Easterhouse, Drumchapel, Castlemilk and Pollok. A huge 73ha of the area is open space (including 3ha of open country). Just under half of this (33ha) is private gardens.

Figure 5. and

The predominant housing typologies are terraced single family houses and 4-in-a-blocks. Both are associated with front and back private gardens.

Figure 6. Openblock tenements associated with shared private gardens and green desert

High-rise multi-family housing in the north is set in amongst a large amount of green desert, with no clear ownership or use (except for a small, well-used playground). The towers for the boundary between the city and the country, with greenbelt countryside to the north. Remaining post-war open-block tenemental housing is also associated largely with green desert. Parcels of green desert are large, ranging from around 600m² among single family houses to 1ha around tenements and high-rises. It is built mostly at suburban densities with a huge amount of open land – density averages 7 people / ha, even accounting for the tower blocks. 3ha of open space already has a defined function, including a community garden, 2 small designated playparks, and a playing field. Milton park (civic land) contains one of the small playgrounds, but use is otherwise limited and access is poor. Other open land is associated with churches.

Figure 7. Highrise multi-family housing associated with green desert

A large proportion of the study area (16ha; 22% of the open space) is vacant and derelict land – a mixture of undeveloped large parcels of land, and former housing sites (in various states of dereliction). All V&D parcels are considerable in size. The vast majority of the area is ranked in the top 5% most deprived in Scotland, and some is in the top 1%. Like many peripheral areas, shops and services are poor, fresh food access in almost zero. The relationship with the surrounding countryside is almost non-existent. Though much stock was sold under Right to Buy, around 50% of the housing stock remains in public ownership (GHA). Most land is owned by GHA or GCC, and most derelict sites are also in public ownership.

Private gardens (shades of colour)

Green desert

Explorations: Area profiles

Figure 8. Quantity of each land type in 100ha

Figure 9. SIMD. Most areas are in top 5% most deprived Low

1ha

Civic

Vacant & Derelict

Built

Green desert

Open country

Private gardens

In specific use

High

Figure 10. Density - with so much open land, density is low Low

High

Explorations: Area profiles Milton

Figure 11.â&#x20AC;&#x201A;Spatial distribution of different land types

Explorations: Area profiles

Explorations: Area profiles Newlands

Newlands is on the edge of Glasgow’s City’s boundary with East Renfrewshire and South Lanarkshire, all of which form part of the greater Glasgow metropolitan area. 62ha of the study area is open space, the remainder being built up. The largest land resource (42ha, and 78% of the open space in the study area) is private gardens – many of these are large, up to 1,000m2.

Figure 12. Detached houses with private gardens

The predominant housing typology is single family houses with front and back private gardens. To the north east there is an area of post war, open block tenemental housing with shared private gardens – these seem more landscaped than used. This housing is also associated with most of the green desert in the study area.

Figure 13. Terraced houses with private gardens

It is suburban (mostly) in character – density averages 36 people / ha and is fairly constant.

Figure 14. Open block tenements with private gardens and green desert

There is no V&D land and no large holes in the landscape (unlike in Milton, where the dominant typology is single family houses, but the total built area is around 10ha less than Newlands, bringing densities much lower). 4ha of green space is already in a specific use, all with restricted access: including a bowling green, tennis courts, and a 1.6ha ha allotment site which is fully occupied. Newlands Park (civic land) already hosts some specific uses, including a cafe and sports pitches. The area ranks low in the deprivation index, but the demographic profiles are mixed. The west of the study area has an ageing population living in detached houses which are likely to be owned or privately rented. The south-east of the area has a younger, less white population, more likely to be in blue-collar employment or unemployed, living in socially or privately rented terraced houses

Private gardens (shades of colour)

Green desert

Explorations: Area profiles

Figure 15. Quantity of each land type in 100ha

Figure 16. SIMD. Most of the area ranks low for deprivation Low

1ha

Civic

Vacant & Derelict

Built

Green desert

Open country

Private gardens

In specific use

High

Figure 17. Density - density is low but fairly constant

Low

High

Explorations: Area profiles Newlands

Figure 18.â&#x20AC;&#x201A;Spatial distribution of different land types

Explorations: Area profiles

Explorations: Area profiles Partick Partick is an area of the West End of Glasgow. 32ha of the study area is open space, the rest being built up. The dominant land resource is private gardens (18ha; 54% of open space). The predominant housing typology is sandstone pre-war closed-block tenements, which have shops lining the ground floor on main streets. These tenements, and later tenemental housing, have shared private gardens. Shared backcourts are likely to be in multiple private ownership. Some are paved or raised up to first floor level where there are shops at the ground floor. Blocks are small and so are tenement backcourts, commonly divided by close (70100m² per close). Front setbacks form a buffer between the public street and private ground floor flats at the front. Ownership and use of these small front spaces is ambiguous. In some closes, front gardens are larger and visibly belong to the ground floor flat, with access from the front path or over a low wall. Where the old tenement typology has been mimicked, front gardens closely resemble green desert, with no apparent ownership or use.

These households are characterised as ‘professional’ and are likely to be home-owners. Part of the southern area, where households live mostly in post-war socially-rented housing (tenements or single family), rank in the 20% most deprived. There is a higher-than average proportion of people of mixed ethnicity.

Figure 19. and Figure 20. Closedblock tenements with shared private gardens, often small and divide by close

To the south of Dumbarton Road, more recent housing association development has a small amount of single family housing. This is associated with small pockets of green desert amenity space, ranging from 50m² to 500m². Densities are urban – average 98 people / ha over the study area, and is fairly constant owing to the limited variation in housing typology. 4ha of other open space already has a clear (single) function, with restricted access, including a bowling green and cricket ground. On top of this, there are 2 small parks – one with some incorporated sports functions, and some underused land associated with civic buildings such as the police and the subway (civic land).

Figure 21. Some single family housing, associated with small pockets of green desert

Most green desert land is associated with the heavy transport infrastructure in the study area, with corridors of green running along the railway and Clydeside Expressway. The lack of V&D land in the area reflects its position within the west end of the city and lack of large-scale slum clearance post-war. Housing typologies are not that varied, but the socioeconomic and demographic profile is mixed. The northern part of the area, where households live in prewar sandstone tenements, is in general less deprived, with some parts ranking in the least deprived 10% in Scotland.

Private gardens (shades of colour)

Green desert

Explorations: Area profiles

1ha

Civic

Vacant & Derelict

Built

Green desert

Open country

Private gardens

In specific use

Figure 22. Quantity of each land type in 100ha

High

Low

Figure 23. SIMD. Partick is socially mixed, with some areas of high deprivation and others of very low High

Low

Figure 24. Density. Partick is very built up, and housing density is consistently high

Explorations: Area profiles Partick

Figure 25.â&#x20AC;&#x201A;Spatial distribution of different land types

Explorations: Area profiles

Explorations: Area profiles Gorbals - Laurieston The Gorbals / Laurieston is an area in transition. It is in its third phase of renewal in less than a century. The area is very close to the city centre, with good transport links.

Figure 26. Closed block tenements with undefined, shared private gardens

32ha of the area is open space, the rest being built up. A third of this land resource is private gardens (11ha). Almost all housing has been built in the last 25 years. The dominant housing typology is tenemental. The earlier Crown Street redevelopment has closed blocks with private shared gardens for each block. Front gardens aren’t common. The later Laurieston redevelopment has open blocks with private internal courtyards which are only accessible to residents (but have locked street access). The internal spaces are a mix of shared backcourts (per close), individual private gardens for single dwellings (townhouses and ground floor flats), and shared communal central spaces. Front gardens exist, and are sometimes deep and often green.

Figure 27. Open block tenements with carefully defined individual, shared and communal gardens

Gradients of public and private space have been considered. There is a similar amount of green desert to Partick (7.5ha). This is a lot less undefined land compared to the previous modernist incarnation of the area. What green desert there is, is largely associated with the remaining post-war openblock tenemental housing, although some amenity has crept into the Laurieston phases of redevelopment, mown and rebranded as “pocket parks”. Enclosed private gardens (taking individual, shared per close and shared per block together) range from around 800m2 to around 3,000 m2. It is built at urban densities, but a large amount of undeveloped land brings the average density down to 28 people / ha. 2ha of open space already has a defined function. 7ha remain vacant or derelict and reflect the area’s ongoing transformation, and these are big sites. Land is likely to be used predominantly for housing development. Around 4ha is civic land associated with schools and two parks (both of which are laid out quite formally). Historically this is an area of high deprivation, though recent regeneration efforts have adopted a mixed tenure approach, with some housing socially rented, some privately rented, and some owner-occupied. The 2016 SIMD shows most of the area still ranks in the most deprived 10%, with the exception of the Crown Street area, which is in the 4th decile.

Figure 28. Postwar tenements associated with green desert

Private gardens (shades of colour)

Green desert

Explorations: Area profiles

1ha

Civic

Vacant & Derelict

Built

Green desert

Open country

Private gardens

In specific use

Figure 29. Quantity of each land type in 100ha

High

Low

Figure 30. SIMD. Gorbals is in transition but remains deprived

High

Low

Figure 31. In built areas, density is high but a lot of vacant land remains

Explorations: Area profiles Gorbals / Laurieston

Figure 32.â&#x20AC;&#x201A;Spatial distribution of different land types

Explorations: Area profiles

Explorations: Case studies

Case studies I take a step back from the mapping of Glasgow’s context to look at a handful of urban agriculture and greenspace interventions in other places which seem to have ‘worked’, and try to identify the ways in which these might be relevant to Glasgow. These case studies are picked because they are pertinent to one or more land types, housing typologies and/or social context, and they aim to examine urban agriculture interventions over a range of scales.

I: Urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba Scale

Primary motivations

Land types

Food security (household)

Food security (country)

Health, social, wellbeing

Enivronmental

Economic

Actors

Growing typologies

Individual

Local govt

Community

National govt

Charity

Small business

Individual

Collective

Commons

Teaching

Sale

Social

Economic

Consumption of produce

Environment, ecology

Health + Wellbeing

Productive Dimensions

Food production Distribution Consumption and access Waste

What? Cuba has embraced urban agriculture and developed lowinput, high-output systems to maximise the production of food. Produce grown in Havana and its peri-urban fringe accounts for 60-90% of the produce consumed in the city. Produce supplements the state food ration (much of which is still imported), which doesn’t include fruit and vegetables. This growing is economically productive (providing household and country-wide food security), and productive

in terms of health (with the Cuban diet shifting more towards fresh fruit and vegetables). Urban agriculture in Cuba is nearly entirely organic – an interesting side effect of a collapse in the country’s ability to import chemical agro-fertilisers. Growing is locally environmentally productive, significantly increasing biodiversity and ensuring soil remains nutrient-rich for future generations (Peters, 2010), and cooling cities. It is also globally environmentally productive in reducing the carbon footprint of the Cuban diet – agro-ecological

Explorations: Case studies production uses mostly animal and human labour inputs in place of machinery, and food grown closer to home limits the need for costly transportation and refrigeration.

knowledge through practice (Koonts, 2009).

Why?

The whole country is involved in Cuba’s urban agriculture (population: 12m (Cuba), 2m (Havana)). Everyone relies on self-provisioning to a degree (whether that’s through workers’ cooperatives or rooftop chicken farming); no one group is particularly targeted or involved.

Urban agriculture in Cuba was motivated by the sudden absence of, and need for, food security. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union (which triggered an almost total collapse in Cuba’s food supply), Cuba’s food economy relied heavily on imports, enabled by exports from monocultural, high-input rural sugar farming. Urban agriculture was the ‘obvious and necessary solution’ (Koont, 2009) to the practical need to minimise the use of transportation (production and consumption are closer) and machinery (smaller-scale production necessitates more manual labour).

Who’s key? Initial urban food provisioning was through guerillagardening initiatives, turning the prevailing state-citizen relations on their head. The bottom-up beginnings then led to top-down enabling: enthusiastic state-support (Clouse, 2014a) combined with these grassroots efforts, led to the development of a comprehensive system of statesupported urban farming programs. Willing workers – some paid, some contributing labour in exchange for produce1 - driven by a strong socialist work ethic, underpin the whole system. Though previously unskilled in agro-ecology, Cuba’s highly educated population has been able to learn quickly from peasants, and through ongoing research. Urban agricultural knowledge is gained through participatory learning, teaching and producing, and the next generations are trained (Koont, 2009). The state steps in to provide the infrastructural resources necessary which individual production units would struggle to provide themselves, the absence of which would constrain productivity. This includes the provision of technical assistance and advice, seeds, compost, biofertilisers and water (part-piped, part-harvested, and used very efficiently). A whole host of state agencies and state-supported organisations coordinate and promote permaculture, agricultural research and animal husbandry. Foreign NGOs are increasingly providing funding for tools, irrigation and seeds. A comprehensive program of research puts an emphasis on participatory research and on generating 1 Similarly to the way CSA schemes operate in North America.

Who’s the audience?

The destination of produce varies across typologies (below). Food produced on rooftops and window gardens, yards and lots is destined for the households who work the land; other larger areas of land like blocks produce for collective consumption (including by institutions and workplaces) and trade. Some farms have employees and the output supports both the employees and their families. Some produce can be legally sold at markets for profit (some prices are set by the market, others by the state). Profitsharing means average incomes in urban agriculture are above the average for state employees (Koont, 2009). Moral incentives to engage in urban agriculture also exist in the form of prestige (agricultural work is increasingly seen as technical and scientific, not ‘backward’), and honors.

Physical form and land resource Food provisioning has found space in existing urban landscapes, at various scales, in various configurations, and with various levels of state sanction and support. Land in cities was re-appropriated for food provisioning under a legal system of usufruct rights. There were limited competing uses for this land. Clouse (2014a) describes the taxonomy of urban agriculture: Micro-jardines (typically <100m²): production of spatially efficient crops and small livestock in planter boxes and containers on windows and rooftops (private gardens). Some ‘space hijacking’ – appropriation of public space – for herbs and fruit and nut trees. Found in urban core where outdoor space is limited. Privately owned and cultivated by one person. Patios (typically less than 1,000m²): production of larger roots, vegetables, grain and small livestock, according to the site’s conditions. Fit into underused or leftover spaces (Green desert), cultivated by a single person, close to that person’s home. Parcelas (typically less than 1,000m²): production of larger roots, vegetables, grain and small livestock. Formed with usufruct land: portions of public parks and abandoned or underused urban plots (V&D land). Worked by a person

Explorations: Case studies or a small group. Sometimes resemble patios (like private adjacent gardens); sometimes are much more public. Huertos Intensivos (1,000-5,000m²): production of vegetables – may specialise in a few. Typically occupy state-owned land (Civic land) which used to be vacant, such as bits of public parks or space surrounding public buildings. Includes some retail space. Autoconsumos (varied in size): production of food for institutions. Usually physically connected to a school or workplace (Civic land). Organoponicos (2,500-20,000m²): high-yield urban gardens producing spatially efficient crops and eggs. Characteristic of most large-scale production in city. Occupy whole city blocks or gaps between housing (V&D land). Campesinos Particulares (5,000-80,000m²): various production, including soil, trees, flowers, crops and livestock. Occupy green-belt or peri-urban land and resemble rural farms. All typologies mix crops to some degree; none are monocultural. Each growing typology has its place in the complex system which sees different crops and inputs produced in different amounts at different distances from the city’s core. The plot-based gardens typology is notably absent: productivity and collective responsibility drives Cuban UA – and dividing a larger land parcel into multiple plots for private cultivation does not make sense within this framework.

Physical form vs social action? The imperative of the country to feed itself has driven UA, and the physical form has followed. This explains why, despite heterogeneity in sites and growing needs, heterogeneity in actors and no professional design input, the physical form is quite regular (Clouse, 2014a).

Good things The many different typologies give resilience to the food system – Clouse (ibid) refers to this as the country’s ‘dispersed and prolific food security scheme’. The system is multi-scalar and crucially provides all the services needed to link up the pieces. The stock of knowledge of food production (and of environmentally sustainable food production) is high.

Challenges and limits

Driven as it has been by crisis, it’s unclear what will happen to the Cuban landscape of urban agriculture if and when the crisis eases. Viljoen and Bohn (2014) note that there is a difference between ‘utility landscapes’ and ‘ornamental landscapes’, and suggests that it’s wrong to assume that exposure to urban agriculture alone will change perceptions about what belongs in a city and what doesn’t. Connotations of poverty and hard labour associated with working landscapes may influence what people want out of a leisure landscape when times are less hard. Cuba’s urban agriculture is productive economically and environmentally, but the form it takes (maximising production over various sized parcels of land) means other activities can’t naturally share the space. Thus working landscapes remain working landscapes, rather than there being a blend of work and leisure, with space for recreation as well as survival.

Contributions for UA Cuba’s comprehensive system of urban agriculture derives its efficiency from a network of small-but-interconnected urban gardens (Clouse, 2014b p71), being “just decentralised enough to be flexible; just structured enough to organise and regulate”. It is a complete system, with access to training, education, and organic inputs, part and parcel. These so-called ‘extension services’ are the elements which link what might otherwise be fragmented and inefficient (in food-provisioning terms) small scale projects. The way in which Cuba, and Havana in particular, has managed to integrate food provisioning into existing landscapes demonstrates that productivity can be injected into ‘hardened urban wastescapes’ (Clouse, 2014a) through a practise of urban acupuncture, un-complex, well-suited typologies, and logical land-use transitions. This has shifted thinking about what a city is and should be. Cuba’s experience underpins just how vital a resource urban land is in a sustainable food system which minimises supply-chain distance.

Lessons for Glasgow The Cuban context is specific in several dimensions – not least the ideological solidarity of the population, the catalyst of crisis, and the climate. The scope of UA in Cuba owes a lot to sudden crisis. Food crises in the globalised world will be a lot more gradual and imperceptible. Still, Glasgow can learn lessons. Spatially, Cuba shows Glasgow how a city can be

Explorations: Case studies comprehensively retrofitted for UA using existing land resource, making an important contribution to food security at a household and city level. In terms of policy, Cuba can show Glasgow where the state can usefully get involved – in the provision of extension services, for example. Glasgow could also learn from the emphasis on agricultural learning, and on learning through doing. With proper investment in schools and education, there’s no reason why agricultural work couldn’t gain some of the same prestige among urban dwellers. At a high level, Cuba can teach Glasgow what a resilient, sustainable food system can look like. Resilience is not the same as self-sufficiency. With a climate like Glasgow’s, self-sufficiency isn’t achievable even if it was desirable, but resilience is. The Cuban state could take all the available land and assign each parcel to a certain crop, cultivate it on a mono-cultural basis and then pool and distribute across the population. But this food system would be a tree, much like the current global food system. Instead, growing on land takes many different typologies, cultivation varies in intensity and crop, and each element in the system provisions overlapping sets of people (Alexander’s semilattice). This variety and overlap is where it gets its stability. Glasgow doesn’t need year-round urban growing – unlike Havana and Cuba it has access to regional, national and European and global growers. It just needs more growing – releasing pressures and creating alternatives in a highly vertically integrated food system.

Figure 33. An organoponico in Havana, Cuba

Figure 34. Some produce can be legally sold at the farm gate for profit

Explorations: Case studies

II: North Glasgow Community Food Initiative Scale

Primary motivations

Land types

Food security (household)

Food security (country)

Health, social, wellbeing

Enivronmental

Economic

Actors

Growing typologies

Individual

Local govt

Community

National govt

Charity

Small business

Individual

Collective

Commons

Teaching

Sale

Social

Economic

Consumption of produce

Environment, ecology

Health + Wellbeing

Productive Dimensions

Food production Distribution Consumption and access Waste

What? North Glasgow Community Food Initiative operates a ‘food hub’ model – a holistic approach to food in specifically targeted communities, which rank among the most deprived in Scotland. Community spaces empower people to access the whole ‘virtuous circle’ of food, including growing food, purchasing fruit and veg, cooking skills and enjoying and choosing a healthy diet (NGCFI, 2015), and fruit and veg barras operate in locations across the north of Glasgow, providing low-cost access to healthy foods. This is economically productive (in promoting food justice) and productive in terms of health and well-being (breaking down barriers to healthy diets, and physical and mental health benefits associated with gardening). The community food hubs are socially productive, fostering community pride and contributing to the community’s stock of human capital (knowledge and skills), as well as reducing isolation. Global environmental productivity is

limited, but the community gardens do contribute to local biodiversity, soil quality, and storm-water management in a flood prone area (locally environmentally productive).

Why? NGCFI is motivated by health and well-being, food justice, and household food security. While growing food is part of what NGCFI does, food production is not a primary aim1. Volunteer gardeners can take away produce, and during the summer months some of the fresh produce at the barras comes from the gardens, but this is just one of many ways in which NGCFI aim to empower local people with knowledge about the food system. Through their activities, they are mostly targeting the peoples’ food environment (food options as a function of availability, accessibility, 1 According to Greig Sandilands, a project manager at NGCFI. An interview with Greig in July provided much of the detail in this case study.

Explorations: Case studies affordability and appeal) and the consumption part of the food system. NGCFI want to help create resilient food systems, not perpetuate emergency food aid.

Who’s key? NGCFI is a charity, run from the bottom-up with grant funding and volunteers. NGCFI’s food hub model involves working with partners wherever possible. In Royston, for example, NGCFI works in partnership with Copperworks Housing Association and two local primary schools for pupils to learn how to grow veg on land owned by the association. In Milton, NGCFI has a good working relationship with local churches and other community organisations which share many of their aims.

Who’s the audience?

Good things The food hub model seems to provide a good focus for community activity around food, in areas in which lack spaces to be and to gather. The food hub model also provides good opportunities for partnership working with other organisations and agencies.

Challenges and limits Anecdotally, around 90% of the fruit and veg sold at the barras is sourced from wholesalers and through surplus-food distribution programs such as FareShare. In the summer months, the supply is supplemented by food grown in the community gardens2, but in general the links between local (peri-urban or nearby rural) producers and community food hubs don’t seem to exist yet.

NGCFI targets deprived communities who it wants to upskill and empower. These areas are often fresh food deserts, and many have extremely poor diet. Areas in the north of Glasgow are amongst some of the most deprived in Scotland. The sale of fresh fruit and veg at accessible locations is key, particularly in these areas where car ownership is low, public transportation poor and expensive, and so access to supermarkets (where people might buy healthy food) poor.

Most people come to the garden for social reasons, and interest in grow-your-own has so far been difficult to drum up. This is attributed partially to the fact that people are motivated to satisfy basic needs first3, and growing food may be good for physical and mental health, but it is not the most immediate way to satisfy hunger. While there are undoubtedly many reasons people don’t get invovled in food growing, a lack of skills in the community may be an important factor4.

Physical form and land resource

Expansion of the food hubs to include more food production is limited by funding as well as a lack of interest.

NGCFI has three physical growing sites, on land in some way publicly owned: in Milton (community garden, Green desert/V&D), Springburn (plots in community allotments) and Royston (community garden, Civic land belonging to a housing association). There are temporary barrass locations across north Glasgow which act as community sales points – mostly in and around schools, health centres, churches and other community venues (Civic land).

The location of Milton community garden in an area of low density, poorly served by transport, may put limits on the ‘reach’ of the site to those who wish to garden and have skills to share, but live outside the immediate vicinity.

Contributions for UA Although food growing is not the primary aim, the

Physical form vs social action? For NGCFI, access to land for growing does not seem to be an issue. In Milton, for example, the city council have given them a 25-year lease on a large patch of Green Desert land adjacent to their current site (although plans to expand have stalled). Although growing is a small part of what they do, the physical food hub, and the permanence of that physical hub, is important. The presence of food growing in these communities helps start a conversation about healthy food, and where it comes from.

2 But not with food from the Springburn allotment – sale of produce from allotments is (currently) not legal. 3 Maslow’s theory of a hierarchy of needs states that people are motivated to fufill certain needs, and that some needs take precedence over others. Basic needs such as food, warmth, security and safety come first. 4 Greig speculated that there seemed to be more successful skill-sharing and community upskilling in Woodlands - referring to the Woodlands Community Garden - where the community is more socially and economically mixed. There are certainly differences in the demographics of Woodlands compared to neighbourhoods in North Glasgow (Understanding Glasgow indicators project), and these differences might have important consequences for the types of food projects which work in one area and not another.

Explorations: Case studies presence of food-growing activity is still productive socially. The fruit and veg barras contribute in a small way to distributing locally grown produce, and the skills and training offered expand the possibilities for healthy and sustainable consumption should more fresh food be available.

Lessons for Glasgow The food hub model has the potential to contribute to food justice in the city, but the limited reach of existing sites suggests that additional elements may be needed. This might be a mobile veg barras which expands the reach of fruit and vegetable sales (to a mix of communities, with a mix of disposable income) and enables a more frequent service (allowing people to plan more easily for healthy meals), or the utilisation of small bits of land around existing community hubs (such as schools, libraries and health centres) to create mini food hubs. With a greater reach, hubs may need to rely less on volunteers and grant funding, and could pay part-time wages to local people retailing fruit and vegetables from sales. To expand the model Glasgow’s public landowners also need to be willing to hand-hold and facilitate land access, however small.

Figure 35. (Case study II) NGCFI wants to empower people to access the full ‘virtuous cycle’ of food through the food hub model.

Figure 36. (Case study II) Children man a fruit and veg barras in Royston

Explorations: Case studies

III: Growing Communities, Hackney Scale

Primary motivations

Land types

Food security (household)

Food security (country)

Health, social, wellbeing

Enivronmental

Economic

Actors

Growing typologies

Individual

Local govt

Community

National govt

Charity

Small business

Individual

Collective

Commons

Teaching

Sale

Social

Economic

Consumption of produce

Environment, ecology

Health + Wellbeing

Productive Dimensions

Food production Distribution Consumption and access Waste

What? Growing Communities is a social enterprise in Hackney, north London, which works in and with communities to grow and sell local, sustainable food. The main element is the veg box, which is a form of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme, with fruit and vegetables sourced from their own farms in Hackney and Dagenham and from farms further afield. They also run a weekly, 100% organic local farmers market. These activities are locally (biodiversity in the city and through organic farming) and globally environmentally productive (fewer food miles). GC works with local communities in several ways. This includes running various free growing and cooking clubs for children, parents and vulnerable adults, in partnership with local schools. These build the stock of knowledge and skills among local people (socially productive) and increase knowledge of how to eat and cook healthily (productive in terms of health and well-being). The

farmers market is also socially productive in providing a place for the community to gather regularly. GCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is economically productive in terms of job creation and supporting a local food economy. Every year, 4 unemployed lone parents are trained in food growing and production. Once graduated, the apprentices are then set up with land to farm (micro-gardens, see below), growing produce to sell and for the veg box scheme, which provides a helpful guaranteed market.

Why? Growing Communities is motivated by the environment, food security and health and well-being. It aims to get more and more people able to grow food on a commercial scale in the city. While helping the local communities in which it works, it is striving to change the wider food system. The â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;food

Explorations: Case studies zones’ vision is GC’s way of thinking about food and farming. The logic is based on the idea that food which is most perishable (like salads) should be grown closest to home, and as we move further away, different ‘zones’ provide appropriate locations for a full range of crops. The food zone vision doesn’t strive for a city’s self-sufficiency. It is a holistic look at what a resilient food system might look like, supporting sustainable farming within the city, in peri-urban areas, and in rural farmland across the southeast, the UK and beyond. The vision is for human-scale farms which are low input (organic, or near-as) and diverse, built around appropriate use of human skills, labour and machinery. Diets will reflect the seasons and how much can be produced where, are mainly plant based, minimise processing and waste, and are sufficient for human health and happiness. Through community-led training, distribution and retail systems, farms are directly connected to urban communities, shortening supply chains and reconnecting urban and rural.

Who’s key? Growing Communities works for change from the bottom-up, offering an alternative to the supermarket dominated food system since 1997. It is a mission-led notfor-profit social enterprise with paid staff and volunteers which is central in creating a network of urban, peri-urban and rural growers who all grow food for the veg box and farmers market. The areas of London where GC works are fairly densely populated, and well-connected, providing a ready market of vegetable buyers.

Who’s the audience? The target of all of GC’s activities are people living in and around Hackney, whether that’s buying local fruit and vegetables, volunteering on one of the farms, learning to grow commercially, or learning about where food comes from. Ultimately GC wants to change everyone’s food system – the GC model aims to be replicable and asks to be replicated, so that others can set up similar alternative food networks in their area. A recently-launched start-up program has so far supported around a dozen initiatives to be set up under the same (veg box) model.

Physical form and land resource Some of the produce GC puts in its veg boxes is grown in a patchwork of farms around north east London, with others sourced from sustainable peri-urban and rural farms

around London. Growing communities have two ‘farms’ in London. The farm (market garden) in Dagenham operates on an ex-Council nursery site (presumably previously V&D land) which is around 0.5ha, with glasshouses and polytunnels which extend the growing season. The ‘farm’ in Hackney is actually a patchwork of smaller growing spaces which together form a market garden, the three largest of which are in public parks. The remaining sites are so-called ‘micro-gardens’, of less than 150m2, farmed by ex-apprentices (see above). These micro-gardens make productive land which would have otherwise been underused, including land and gardens around churches and council estates (Green desert and civic land). The farmers market is an important regular physical fixture, which provides a visible and viable alternative to supermarkets.

Physical form vs social action? The food-zone model functions at its best if land is available for growing certain crops in and close to the city – from the centre to the outskirts. Urban growing is therefore key to the environmentally productive dimensions of the project as well as the socially productive dimensions.

Good things The model doesn’t ask for vast tracts of urban land to be converted to high productivity agriculture. It is a model of small-scale farming, but lots of it. The regular farmers market (at which urban and rural produce is sold) makes it more of a viable alternative to supermarket shopping and creates a dialog between producers and consumers. The mission-driven nature of Growing Communities means there is an emphasis on affordability (though not ‘cheapness’) which broadens the reach of their market and veg box beyond a privileged few. The model takes each community as a centre and sees the food zones radiating out of that point. Communities also overlap, so each does not have a self-contained supply chain but rather a semi-lattice network of reliances, dependencies and alternatives.

Challenges and limitations Access to urban land for growing needs to be facilitated. Protection of or support for agro-ecological peri-urban and rural farms near cities also needs to be provided, otherwise the food-zone model breaks down at the city’s boundary.

Explorations: Case studies Grant funding may be necessary before a similar project can become self-sustaining (though after this the veg box scheme should be able to pay for itself), and also to fund the community outreach and apprenticeship projects which can lead to more jobs.

Contributions for UA Growing Communities is a clear example of how an alternative community-centered food system can be created and replicated using land at different scales. The form which Growing Communities’ farms take show how the food growing typology can be adapted to available land and neighbourhood typologies, and how the different scales and locations can work together to change the food system. The Hackney ‘farm’ shows the productive potential of small quantities of urban land.

Lessons for Glasgow There is a patchwork of spaces available in Glasgow, from small corners of Green desert to larger derelict sites (school sites, for example). In order to activate these spaces, the council would need to help in order to secure land, and possibly help with start up costs, but beyond initial outlay, projects could be fairly independent. The certainty of a veg box scheme could help some existing small scale growers in and around Glasgow to scale up and increase sales. The model is fairly simple and very local, with transportation costs limited (good for the environment and for the cost) by the collection method. The council could support those wishing to set up a local scheme tap into support for start-ups, small businesses and co-ops.

Figure 39. (Case study III) Salad greens grown under cover in Dagenham in Spring

Figure 37. The food zone model looks at what a sustainable food system might look like

Figure 38. (Case study III) As part of the food zone model, growing appropriate crops in the city is seen as indispensable

Explorations: Case studies

IV: Incredible edible Todmorden Scale

Primary motivations

Land types

Food security (household)

Food security (country)

Health, social, wellbeing

Enivronmental

Economic

Actors

Growing typologies

Individual

Local govt

Community

National govt

Charity

Small business

Individual

Collective

Commons

Teaching

Sale

Social

Economic

Consumption of produce

Environment, ecology

Health + Wellbeing

Productive Dimensions

Food production Distribution Consumption and access Waste

What? A town-wide project which grows fruit, herbs and vegetables in publicly accessible locations all around town for everyone to share. It is socially productive in the way food has permeated the school curriculum, and in building community. Awareness of where food comes from is environmentally productive. More fresh food is being eaten, particularly in school canteens – productive in terms of health and wellbeing. It is economically productive for the local area – more people are attracted to the town and more people buy from Todmorden shops.

Why? The aim is to increase the amount of local food eaten in Todmorden. Incredible Edible wants to help change behaviour towards the environment, and build stronger, healthier, more resilient communities. It was borne of a

desire to create a local economy which works for local people.

Who’s key? Incredible edible is an entirely bottom-up initiative which uses the shared language of food to make the project as inclusive and accessible as possible. All food is grown in the commons – running with no paid staff, no buildings, and no public funding. Incredible Edible was founded by a group of local people with a ‘go get it’ attitude. They are now incorporated as a community benefit society. Success has diversified who’s involved. Schools are key in school growing projects, and the charity and social enterprise sector is involved with market garden and aquaponics projects. There is also a productive partnership with Calderdale Council. The council saw it wasn’t just ‘another scheme

Explorations: Case studies that needed money throwing at it’ (Incredible Edible, 2016), let the group get on with things, and was prepared to clear the obstacles in the way when they were encountered. They then created the community growing licence for Todmorden which has now been extended to cover the rest of Calderdale.

Who’s the audience? Todmorden is a market town in the Calder Valley, Yorkshire, with a population of around 15,000. Its demographics are mixed, with some parts ranking in the top 30% most deprived in England. The area has aboveaverage long-term unemployment and a significant proportion of children living in poverty (CRDC). The original guerilla-gardening initiatives aimed to start a conversation in the town about food. This led to local public services including police, health services, old people’s homes and social landlords getting on board and including food growing in their grounds. The high school runs qualifications in the environment and land, and the community college offers adult education courses in all sorts of subjects related to the land. Food has permeated the school curriculum at all levels.

Physical form and land resource The physical form of growing spaces is very varied, dispersed across the whole town. The original form was propaganda planting in public places, including leftover corners of council-owned land (green desert) and around the railway station (civic land). This expanded to include many more corners of the town – in front of the local college, the police station, and in the car park of the health centre (civic land). All of these growing spaces are part of the urban commons: people are free (and are encouraged) to harvest produce for themselves. Most of the growing is in raised beds. Calderdale Council now plants herbs in raised beds across the area (edible landscaping). Having started a conversation about food, other elements of the community got on board, using further land for growing. All of Todmorden’s primary schools now have vegetable plots on their land or surrounding land (school gardens). The high school has a commercial-size polytunnel on site, and an aquaponics unit sits on land donated by the council. Together these supply the school canteen, with surplus sold to the town.

and encourages people to get out, walk and shop local.

Physical form vs social action? The visibility of food growing to everyone in the town comes from the type of land cultivated – space in front of heavily used public buildings, herbs at the train station, raised beds on verges and in car parks. The same conversation about local food could not have started if it had been confined to private, enclosed land. Now the council helps and tries to enable urban growing by mapping suitable land resource.

Good things A significant increase in urban growing here required very little public input, in time or money, but in the end encouraged it – leading by example at its best. Community growing licences are a good step in the direction of legitimising food growing on urban land and reducing common hurdles. The plain-english licence (and a presumption of permission) makes it easy for groups of people to work together and create spaces where they can grow their own produce on Council land. The council has also mapped suitable land (see ). The right to use public land for growing does not require groups to produce onerous business plants, thereby reducing the barriers to getting involved.

Challenges and limitations The initial guerilla gardening relied on a dedicated group of people who wanted to change things and could afford to try – money for tools, seeds, compost and time came from these peoples’ own pockets. These people don’t necessarily exist in every community.

Contributions for UA The effect of incredible edible Todmorden is close to a Continuous Productive Urban Landscape. By slotting in food growing to a variety of spaces across the whole town, food growing is normalised in the landscape, and the food growing landscape is made a leisurescape as well as a workscape by the green routes which take in shops selling local produce, and promote health and wellbeing. Todmorden also demonstrates the flexibility of small spaces around civic buildings for food growing, and the power of the urban food commons in building community.

A green route links key buildings, shops and edible projects

Explorations: Case studies Lessons for Glasgow Glasgow can’t plan for a radical grassroots-led urban food landscape. Glasgow can borrow from Calderdale Council though, who have learnt from their local radical growing initiatives. At the city level they can facilitate food in the urban commons through edible landscaping (herbs in the place of common box planters, for example), and through mapping of suitable small parcels of land for growing and a simple licensing system which carries a presumption of permission for growing on that land. This information shouldn’t be limited to those who know how and where to look for it. Todmorden shows school food growing is also possible on a fairly large scale. Freeing up school food procurement and letting schools work in partnership with each other, could lead to big gains in shortening supply chains and engaging with Scotland’s better food agenda in a more meaningful way. Schools are also community hubs, and more local fresh food in them could be a catalyst of local-area led food planning and engagement.

Figure 42. Plain English community growing licenses remove unnecessary bureaucracy

Figure 40. Most food grown is part of a new urban commons

Figure 41. Underused civic land in a graveyard is used by school children to grow food

Figure 43. Calderdale Council has mapped suitable land to facilitate bottom-up food growing.

Explorations: Case studies

V: Edinburgh Community Backgreens Association Scale

Primary motivations

Land types

Food security (household)

Food security (country)

Health, social, wellbeing

Enivronmental

Economic

Actors

Growing typologies

Individual

Local govt

Community

National govt

Charity

Small business

Individual

Collective

Commons

Teaching

Sale

Social

Economic

Consumption of produce

Environment, ecology

Health + Wellbeing

Productive Dimensions

Food production Distribution Consumption and access Waste

What?

Why?

Edinburgh Community Backgreens Association helps residents living in Edinburgh tenements to grow fruit and vegetables in communal backgreens. Inspired by community backyard regeneration around similar housing typologies in Copenhagen, ECBA helps residents around backgreens to regenerate them into quality urban greenspaces – places which are productive in terms of health and well-being, and are socially productive (through community empowerment).

ECBA is motivated by the environment and a desire to enable more local food. They are also motivated by wanting to ‘grow communities’ and build community resilience through the co-production of greenspace.

Backgreens are often neglected spaces. They are often bland lawns, or totally overgrown, derelict spaces used for dumping. The backgreen regeneration projects are locally environmentally productive in increasing biodiversity and reducing dereliction.

Who’s key? ECBA was a charity (initially with grant funding). The community of residents around a backgreen and ECBA work together to co-produce space. ECBA used community participative design workshops to build residents’ capacity to design their own community backgreen projects, and become self-managing and self-sustaining. This approach is based on the logic of co-production in community greenspace – where communities are encouraged and supported to take a role in their surroundings.

Explorations: Case studies Who’s the audience?

Contributions for UA

Since backgreens are typically only accessible to residents living directly around the greenspaces, the target of each project is that group of residents. When the typology allows access from the street, the audience of the backgreen project is also the wider community. When surveyed, residents around backgreens generally wanted space to grow food, composting facilities, and space to play and be.

The food growing in these projects is not visible in the city, being by nature hidden in private tenemental courtyards. In the private realm, the multiple dimensions of productive landscapes are harnessed, using food growing as a catalyst to build resilient communities, while also unlocking a vast land resource through improving the management of private, but shared, spaces. If co-production and community management of spaces can be achieved, UA can be established more or less permanently – there is no threat of ‘development’ on enclosed residential backgreens.

Physical form and land resource The land resource for this initiative is purely shared private gardens behind tenemental housing, accessible to residents in closes around the green. Tenemental backgreens vary in size but are typically quite large. The greens ECBA worked with are shared by the whole block (not divided by close). Growing spaces are arranged in a community-garden or plot-based typology, in raised beds. Composting facilities and tool sheds are also included. Food produced is consumed by residents around the green.

Physical form vs social action Backgreen regeneration is essentially about the management of space which already exists and is relatively well defined. While the design of the space obviously influences how people use it, what is particuarly interesting here is the way in which the backgreens are created, managed and maintained.

Good things This is a balanced approach to food growing on private (shared) land. Backgreens are not entirely colonised by food growing – they are shared community resources, and with ample room, food growing is just one element of new, quality greenspace.

Challenges and limitations ECBA folded due to a lack of grant funding. Funding is needed for the development team to support residents in the use of their backgreens. Where ownership of tenements around a green is mixed, it may be a challenge to get all the relevant stakeholders on board.

Food production here is both a motivator and also incidental. Food growing in back courts could, but doesn’t necessarily, contribute much to the supply of food in a city. But small amounts of food production play a key role in food understanding.

Lessons for Glasgow Enclosed communal gardens of the type regenearted by ECBA are common across Scotland and beyond. Much greenspace around tenemental typologies in Glasgow is managed by Councils (or their contractors) with little involvement from residents, or not at all (particularly where private landlords are in the majority in a block). Shared tenement backcourts are one of the largest land resources in the city. The model of empowerment in the prodcution of quality greenspace has the potential to lead to wider changes, including in the way councils and housing associations manage their grounds maintenance. Where community garden associations become particularly well-organised, there may be scope for them to bid for grounds-maintenance contracts themselves. The smallscale Community Controlled Housing Associations in west and central Scotland may provide the best opportunities for this – these associations cover a smaller geographical area, opening up grounds maintenacne contracts to smaller, more sustainable and more personal contractors. Most traditional tenements do not have a requirement for a property factor (who might maintain common areas including gardens) written into title deeds, which often leads to neglect and a confusion of responsibilities. The kind of community capacity building which initiatives like ECBA seeks to build is therefore all the more important, and by building connections between neighbours could lead to better maintenance agreements in the future. With enough tenement backcourts gardening, there could be a (commercially viable) demand and need for extension services such as municipal worm compost, seeds and advice.

Conclusions: Propositions for Glasgow

Conclusions Propositions for Glasgow The actions in this section are based on an understanding of Glasgow’s land resource gained through mapping, the detailed case studies, and wider reading around urban agriculture projects across the UK and further afield. The focus is on what public agencies (largely the local authority, Glasgow City Council) can do to further the urban agriculture agenda. This is no replacement for bottom-up initiatives: the underlying principle, demonstrated well by Cuba (case study I) is that both bottom-up and top-down need to operate in parallel. In the case studies section I explore the diverse motivations of a small number of existing urban agriculture projects. In order to realise the potential of UA to add to urban resilience and the quality of urban space, policy which supports these bottom up initiatives needs to be developed. In communities which have not yet actively engaged in the food growing agenda (for many reasons, from apathy to multiple deprivation), public agencies can successfully provide the ‘ignition for action’ (Viljoen and Bohn, 2012). We cannot wait for people to appear in these places, ‘holding hands and planting vegetables’ (NVA & ERZ, 2009) – urban agriculture needs to be enabled.

affects the opportunities people have to interact in it and use it. Laurieston redevelopment is a good example of how form can be used to lay the framework for community life in the back court. To enable this, Glasgow should....

• Develop design guidelines for backcourt space in new tenemental developments.

Associated land types

2 Co-production of backcourts

With the exception of Action 1 I largely discuss policy for the retrofitting of UA into Glasgow, but many of the suggestions and the resulting spatial growing typologies could and should be applied to new development in the city. Some actions are directly related to a spatial growing typology. Others leave the field open, or enable UA more indirectly through non-spatial policy. The list of actions is by no means exhaustive.

1 Creating useable backcourts The tenemental typology has a long history in Glasgow and continues to be re-invented in new developments. When building new, shared tenemental backcourt design should create useable space, with different gradients of privacy fostering space for different functions, including urban growing. Supporting infrastructure such as rainwater harvesting, community composting facilities, and lockable storage should also be provided (this can be done without much outlay). Attention should be paid to access, light and shelter. In private shared gardens, the way space is laid out

Community co-production of spaces (as in ECBA case study) and ongoing community management should be encouraged in shared garden spaces, with urban growing as a catalyst. Where there is a feeling of ownership over space, the realm of possibilities opens up. Urban growing can be established more or less permanently in private garden space, where there is no threat of development. Cultivating private and semi-private spaces can add complexity and resilience to the food system. Co-production and community

Conclusions: Propositions for Glasgow management of spaces has the potential to be socially productive in bringing residents together, particularly in mixed-tenure, mixed-demographics developments. To enable this, Glasgow should....

• As part of planning permission for new housing

developments, require mechanisms to be in place to facilitate co-production of backcourt space, with the expectation that communal spaces will be transferred into some kind of community management. Grounds maintenance contracts must give priority to residents groups.

management associations, with crop sharing). E Ec

• Edible landscapes. Small food forest could be planned

and implemented by the residents, with produce harvested collectively. E S Ec

3 Frontyard sharing

• For existing tenemental housing, proactively offer

support to those living in tenements (with backcourts shared across the whole block) to help block residents to take over management of these spaces. Along with management help, there should also be a focus on food growing according to agro-ecological principles, with appropriate training or resources offered.

Associated land types

In areas dominated by single-family housing, scope for integrating food growing visibly into landscapes is limited. Front garden growing offers more chance for casual interaction with food growing. Front garden growing around low-rise housing can also offer better growing conditions than more shaded land around higher-rise housing. Where gardens are maintained on behalf of tenants who are unwilling or unable, cultivating part of the land can reduce maintenance costs while producing social and environmental benefits.

Associated growing typologies

• Plot-based starter-allotments for residents who wish

to grow food, allocated according to the policy of the residents’ management association. Common toolshed, use of household compost, and rainwater recycling. Produce for consumption/distribution by plot holders. S H+W E Ec

• Community gathering space with raised growing

beds. Common toolshed, use of household compost, and rainwater recycling. Communally gardened, with produce for consumption by volunteers. S H+W E

• Small scale intensive garden (depending on size of

back court) with greenhouse or polytunnel cultivated either a) jointly by residents through a CSA-style scheme. Shares could be bought with labour or with money (HA could offer to forward-pay shares for low-income tenants) or b) through a part-time food gardener (resident or not) employed by the residents’ management association (or several neighbouring

Older residents with gardens could match with people wanting to grow food, in return for a share of the harvest or some other non-monetary exchange. Turning some garden space over to food production limits the amount of outdoor space an older person is responsible for maintaining, and regular social interaction can reduce isolation. Organisations already embedded in communities may be able to identify older people who have trouble looking after their gardens. Growers will live nearby, in housing without land or where conditions aren’t right for growing – common in Glasgow where areas of tenemental stock exist near areas of single-family housing. Older people may have knowledge of food growing which can be shared with the grower, but growers are self-directed (and so require a certain amount of social capital as a base). To enable this, Glasgow should....

• Promote garden sharing to garden owners and to

Conclusions: Propositions for Glasgow potential growers. Plain English template agreements on crop sharing, developed through a pilot, should be widely shared. Associated land types

mapping chooses what to do with the bounty – this might be personal consumption or distribution to local organisations. To enable this, Glasgow should....

• launch a city-wide project working with citizen

volunteers (including schools and community groups) to conduct a tree census. This will require training people to identify and map trees and other information.

Associated land types

Associated growing typologies

• Homegrowing, on borrowed land. Produce for individual consumption, shared with the garden host. S H+W E

• Small-scale intensive gardens - Potential for one grower to cultivate several patches using bio-intensive methods, which could be operated as a (fragmented) market garden or as a CSA-style scheme for the host households. S E Ec

5 Community food growing licenses

4 Tree Census and Harvest A huge amount of fruit and nuts from trees go uneaten each year, and people continue to buy fruit from supermarkets which might be abundantly growing on the street. A large scale citizen mapping exercise of trees in Glasgow would be productive in several dimensions. Knowing where fruit and nut trees are, what they are, and how to harvest them is environmentally productive in reducing waste and socially productive in building skills and knowledge in ecological stewardship. A full scale tree census would also yield much other valuable information for Glasgow and its people. The city-wide data could be used to show fruit and nut tree locations and spread the word about when different varieties are likely to be harvested. The data may also demonstrate spatial inequalities in the distribution and quality of trees (edible or otherwise) which the city can use as a basis for action. This can be done by teams of citizen mappers, including school children and young people studying for qualifications related to land and environment, individuals and community groups. Whoever harvests fruit and nut trees off the back of the

Introduce and promote simple community food growing licences (see Case Study IV) which offer a presumption of permission to grow on council-owned land. Permission to sell produce should not be unreasonably withheld. Having urban food growing licenses helps legitimise the long-term use of currently unproductive land for urban agriculture. The right to use land for growing shouldn’t be limited to those who have the social and political capital to navigate existing invisible processes. Simple licenses open up the urban growing field. Individuals, collections of households, schools and other community groups ‘adopt’ a patch of land to cultivate. Produce might become part of the urban commons, be shared amongst volunteers, participating groups, or sold. Community Empowerment Act requires LAs to support people on allotment waiting lists in an area to come together and “take on” a piece of council land for food growing

Conclusions: Propositions for Glasgow To enable this, Glasgow should....

fostered.

• Map all (suitable, non-strategic) council-owned land.

To enable this, Glasgow should....

• Draw up a simple licence and pilot it in one area of the city before rolling out to the rest.

• Where produce is to be sold, proactively signpost and provide support to produce necessary business cases.

privilege edible plants over non-edibles when creating, renewing or maintaining planting. Associated land types

Associated land types

Associated growing typologies Associated growing typologies

• Community gardens - communally managed and

cultivated by a group of nearby households, acting as community meeting space. Shared composting facilities. Produce may be shared or treated as a common resource. S H+W E

• Edible landscaping - edible plants in the public domain which the public is invited to harvest. E S

7 Front setbacks in bloom

• Market gardens - Potential for one grower to cultivate

several patches using bio-intensive methods, which could be operated as a (fragmented) market garden, or for several growers each to cultivate one, with produce sold at market or direct to restaurants and businesses. Polytunnels or greenhouses used to extend the growing season. E Ec

• Edible food trails which link up small patches of

amenity land in areas where there is a lot of it around housing, where biodiversity is low and where multiple layers of deprivation limit the current level of interest in grow-your-own. Residents, school children and community groups empowered to co-produce space, do signage. S E

6 Public sector planting The public sector should lead by example, cultivating herbs, berries and fruit trees which grow well in the Scottish climate on public land. This includes parks, planters, and landscaping around public buildings. This is a small action which encourages biodiversity and helps to normalise food growing in the urban environment. By encouraging people to harvest the produce, environmental stewardship and a feeling of ownership over urban landscapes can be

Encourage the cultivation of the small front setbacks of residential tenements buildings in heavily built up areas by tenants, particularly of ground floor flats. These are often neglected spaces with no clear ownership (see Area Profile: Partick), which are too small for the space to be useable. The spaces are often hardscaped, so any plants are an improvement in biodiversity. The proximity to housing may provide a catalyst for social interaction. The onus is on the person doing the planting to check ownership of the space, and secure agreement from the block’s residents. Where a building has a single or majority owners (e.g. a Housing Association), this owner may facilitate or undertake planting themselves.

Conclusions: Propositions for Glasgow To enable this, Glasgow should....

• As a one-off, provide topsoil, seeds and plants, to people who want to cultivate the front setback. Advice on planting and care should be provided and easily accessible.

Associated land types

a part-time gardener). School food procurement should be devolved to schools to allow them to source some or all of their produce from their own gardens.

• If there is nearby V&D land, priority and encouragement

should be given to schools and colleges to adopt land for food growing.

Associated land types

Associated growing typologies

• Homegrowing - either communal or individual,

• School growing for learning and some institutional

depending on the ownership of the setback. Bringing together residents rather than making a dent in the food supply S E

• Edible landscaping - edible plants which the public are invited to harvest. E

8 Growing in schools

consumption - produce cultivated by children, teachers and catering team for use in the curriculum and and in school dinners. Composting from school canteen, rainwater harvesting, tool shed. S E H+W

• Intensive market garden for institutional consumption and sale - in secondary schools or FE colleges, food cultivated by students studying horticulture / land / environment for use in school canteens and direct sale to businesses or other school canteens. S E H+W Ec

9 Urban Farming Incubator

Train the next generation. Every primary and secondary should have a growing space in or around their grounds. It is vital that the next generations grow up with an understanding of cities as ecosystems, of where food comes from, of how to save seeds and produce compost from waste. To enable this, Glasgow should....

• Fundi and support setting up school gardens (including

Conclusions: Propositions for Glasgow Large parcels of unproductive amenity land in Glasgow’s peripheral estates and neighbouring peri-urban land could be the site of ‘urban agriculture incubators’. The aim would be to train more urban residents to grow food commercial in and around the city. Sites could host different scales and intensities of production, with an emphasis on learning and a transition from amateur to commercial growing fostered. Part of training the next generation. Incubators have the potential to become community hubs and foster an interest among residents in food growing. Knowledge and skills can be shared between incoming established and new resident gardeners, creating social capital in areas where skills, education and economic opportunities are low. To enable this, Glasgow should....

• identify and facilitate suitable sites in peripheral areas. • offer a guaranteed market for produce by contracting with the growers for catering services.

• Hand school food procurement to schools so that they

are able to foster their own alternative food networks and partner with local commercial growers.

• offer support finding land to urban growers trained through the incubator program

Associated land types

Associated growing typologies

• Community gardens - communally cultivated beds, community gathering space. Facilities for household composting. For volunteer consumption. S E H+W

• Plot-based gardens - individual allotments, with

priority to local residents. For amateur growing. Household consumption. S E H+W Ec

• Training gardens - market gardens supported as part

of training initiative. Training amateur growers to be commercial growers. Polytunnels to extend growing season. Produce sold direct to restaurants and city contracts. S E Ec

• Market garden - commercially viable growing. Polytunnels to extend growing season. Produce sold direct to restaurants / institutions / box schemes S E Ec

Conclusions: Conclusion

Conclusion Somehow, somewhere and by someone, the city must be fed. This work has been premised on the idea that a cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s psyche and urban fabric are inextricably linked, and that the reintegration of food into that psyche and fabric is an imperative for resilient cities of the future. I began by reviewing the state of the current global food system, suggesting an alternative in which all people are equipped with the access and knowledge necessary to be well-fed, natural resources are not depleted but enhanced, and which is characterised by complexity, interconnectedness and diversity. Focusing in on the physical boundary of the city, I made the case for urban agriculture as part of a resilient, sustainable, equitable food system, whose multiple dimensions of productivity can be harnessed to bring environmental, social, health and well-being and economic benefits. I then considered the status of land as the indispensable natural capital input to urban agriculture within a capitalist context which has also lost an understanding of how urban and rural are linked. I sought to categorise urban land and understand the importance of where land sits in relation to the built fabric of the city. To explore land in the city as a resource for agriculture, I focused on Glasgow, mapping the land, housing and social context in sample residential areas. This showed considerable variation in the land resource across the city, in quantity and configuration, varying by social context and geographical position within the city. The mapping showed enclosed private gardens to be the biggest resource in the city in terms of quantity, hiding interesting variations in privacy, perceived or actual ownership, size, and accessibility both within and across associated housing typologies. With this in mind, I examined a handful of case studies of UA practice elsewhere, considering many attributes including context, form, actors and motivations, and drawing lessons both for UA in general and Glasgow more specifically. There are countless other precedents to learn from, from an equity lens on allotment provision in Seattle, agriculture as a land use in shrinking Detroit, to whole continents of normalised urban agriculture in the global south. Combining case study and wider reading with the mapping exercise, I made a few propositions for Glasgow which focused on the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;top-downâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; enabling role local

government could take to furthering UA and considered land resource and the spatial configuration of interventions. The approach is based on the premise that top-down action can help to sustain bottom-up action and make the links in the network which are key to the creation of resilient food system, and which small-scale bottom-up action would struggle to make alone. How to make sure the city is fed? Cities must embrace urban agriculture as part of a resilient, sustainable, equitable food system, and use urban agriculture to embed food into the psyche of the city so that this alternative, productive in multiple dimensions, can be envisaged.

Conclusions: References

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school children to grow food < http://www.cityfarmer. info/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/gravekids.jpg>

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Figure 42. Plain English community growing licenses remove unnecessary bureaucracy < https://www. calderdale.gov.uk/v2/sites/default/files/growing-oncouncil-land.pdf>

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Figure 43. Calderdale Council has mapped suitable land to facilitate bottom-up food growing. < https://www. calderdale.gov.uk/v2/maps>

Figures Other than photos listed below, all figures and graphics are my own. Figure 33. An organoponico in Havana, Cuba. < http:// havana-live.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ IMG_9333_720.jpg> Figure 34. Some produce can be legally sold at the farm gate for profit. < http://havana-live.com/news/wpcontent/uploads/2014/06/2013_11_CUBA_gaw-162. jpg> Figure 35. (Case study II) NGCFI wants to empower people to access the full ‘virtuous cycle’ of food through the food hub model. < https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_ images/818421924078481409/dEwkaHQH.jpg > Figure 36. (Case study II) Children man a fruit and veg barras in Royston <http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/ resources/images/6005637/?type=responsive-galleryfullscreen> Figure 37. (Case study III) As part of the food zone model, growing appropriate crops in the city is seen as indispensable. <https://www.flickr.com/ photos/144154180@N05/with/29287221491/> Figure 38. (Case study III) Salad greens grown under cover in Dagenham in Spring < https://www.flickr. com/photos/144154180@N05/with/29287221491/> Figure 39. The food zone model looks at what a sustainable food system might look like < https://www. growingcommunities.org/food-zones> Figure 40. Most food grown is part of a new urban commons < http://stopmensonges.com/wp-content/ uploads/2013/09/c558_incredible_edible_todmorden_ green_route_food_to_share_incroyables_comestibles_ w1600.jpg> Figure 41. Underused civic land in a graveyard is used by

Extras Case study III (Growing Communities) draws heavily on their website, www.growingcommunities.org. Case study IV (Incredible Edible Todmorden) draws heavily on their website, www.incredible-edible-todmorden. co.uk/. Case study V (Edinburgh Community Backgreens Association) draws heavily on the website of the organisation they became, Edible Estates, http://www. edibleestates.co.uk/ Data sources used in mapping: National Records of Scotland, 2011 Census: Digitised Boundary Data (Scotland) [computer file]. UK Data Service Census Support. Downloaded from: https:// borders.ukdataservice.ac.uk/ OS MasterMap Topography Layer [Shape geospatial data], Scale 1:250000, Tile(s): Glasgow, Ordnance Survey, Using: EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, Downloaded: July 2017 Scotland Greenspace Layer [Shape geospatial data], Scale 1:250000, Tile(s): Scotland, Ordnance Survey & Greenspace Scotland, Using: EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, Downloaded: July 2017