Food for the Future: Planning for Urban Agriculture In Cape Town's City Bowl

• Main Author: Rabkin, Nicola Nan
• Other Authors: Katzschner, Tania
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cape Town 2014
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7518

The field of urban planning engages with many aspects of human life, but urban food systems, especially food production, have somehow slipped the agenda. Food insecurity and food-related challenges have for a long time been viewed as rural issues related to environmental factors affecting food production. Now that, in 2013, more than half the world's human population lives in cities, food insecurity has become an urban issue just as much, if not more, than that of rural areas. At the same time industrial and conventional agricultural methods fail to satisfy global human hunger and contribute to large-scale ecological destruction and a variety of human health problems. In many cities around the world, local governments and planning departments, and the planning profession more broadly, have begun to think more deeply about urban food systems: can food systems be more just, more equal, more accessible, healthier and ecologically sustainable. The literature on urban agriculture generally follows two themes: one being urban agriculture as a livelihood and food security strategy for the poor and the other being as socio-ecological strategy to build community through enlivened, green public spaces. Global ecological and economic crises are slowly bringing these themes closer towards one another. Cape Town, in policy and practice, generally remains within the theme of urban agriculture as a food security strategy for the poor. This is a narrow and limited conception of urban agriculture that creates spatial and behavioral barriers to food production in the city. A case study of Cape Town's City Bowl presents an opportunity to engage planners, and ordinary citizens, with food and food systems through urban agricultural strategies. This study examines the constraining factors of urban food production and the potential that this unique urban centre holds for building a healthier food system for all inhabitants. These opportunities are, in this thesis, transformed into proposals for interventions, primarily involving local government and planning.