Green Roofs for Urban Food Security and Environmental Sustainability
By Corinne Kisner, December 2008
URBAN AGRICULTURE CASE STUDY: HARARE, ZIMBABWE
Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, is situated on a watershed plateau between two major rivers, the Limpopo and Zambezi, yielding some of the country’s best agricultural soil. The city’s population is two million, with a growth rate of 5-7% due to internal displacement caused by drought and political and economic instability. In Zimbabwe, 75% of the population is poor and 47% is very poor; these figures are compounded by skyrocketing inflation rates that strain families’ abilities to buy food. In Harare, open spaces account for 10% of land in the city and though the government ignores and at times represses it, urban agriculture serves as a coping mechanism for the poor. In 25% of poor city households, urban agriculture contributes 60% of food consumption. However, 80% of urban agriculture occurs on public land with no official recognition. Recently, though, farmers have lobbied for community participation in local governance and urban agriculture has gained legitimacy as a significant source of food security.
In Harare, land-use issues are intertwined with gender issues. Over 60% of agricultural producers are women, whose household labor provides a limited income and no method of savings, leaving them unable to buy land. A lack of education hinders women’s ability to comprehend land laws, placing them at risk of unexpected eviction. Historically, women used urban agriculture not only as a means of feeding their families but to protest societal norms. “Women’s adoption of urban open-space cultivation in the 1950s and 1960s was a persistent means of resisting, deflating or blunting patriarchal control within and outside the household.” Today, women understand the economic benefits of urban agriculture as well as the illegality of cultivating land without permission and continue to grow food not out of ignorance or disregard for the law, but out of necessity. Women farmers in Harare “have demonstrated their ability to acquire access to large tracts of undeveloped urban land and maintain control of that land through the development of a complex informal land-tenure system, established over time through a web of women’s support networks.” Studies have revealed urban agriculture as the primary survival strategy of poor households in Harare: low income urban farmers are economically and nutritionally better off than their counterparts. For example, children under five from farming households have higher rates of growth in weight and height than those of non-farmers. Given the substantial benefits of urban agriculture, it is reasonable for women to cultivate land regardless of the consequences and similarly unreasonable that the government doesn’t support the movement. “In a country where women are still fighting for legal control and ownership of land, women’s predominance in urban open-space cultivation attests to the very real presence of urban women in the city, expresses their entitlement to urban land, and demonstrates how significantly women have shaped the form and function of their urban environment.”
Unfortunately, there are accounts of government authorities burning urban plots of maize or other crops because the official view depicts urban agriculture as bad for the environment and public health. “City managers and outsiders view the gains from urban farming as just marginal and consequently the activity has been despicably underrated,” says Daniel Sithole, researcher for EDNA-Zimbabwe. However, with a suffering population unable to feed their families, Zimbabwe’s government “has turned a blind eye to the uncontrolled growth of urban agriculture in Harare and other urban centers.” In 1990, gardens covered 8% of land in the city; by 1994, 16% of land, and by 2001, urban agriculture pervaded 25% of Harare’s area. According to Environment 2000, a local non-governmental organization, the primary explanation for this extraordinary growth is the government’s 1993 decision to relax by-laws concerning urban agriculture in an attempt to alleviate poverty. Although this is an improvement over policies that prohibited urban agriculture, Zimbabwe’s government should continue to modify their approach and adopt policies that legitimize urban agriculture.
Without education about safe farming techniques and without protection against eviction, producers in Harare have little incentive to take responsibility for the long-term health of the land they cultivate. “Almost 90% of Harare farmers use chemical fertilizers and nearly a third of "off-plot" cultivation takes place near streams, swamps or "vleis" (a type of wetland) — leading to water pollution through runoff and leaching.” Researchers at ENDA-Zimbabwe concluded that in the absence of appropriate conservation measures, urban agriculture will pose a serious threat to the urban environment. Government programs should inform farmers about the dangers of misusing chemical fertilizers and pesticides and should provide resources about gaining access to land and water.
In Harare, farmers’ organizations have begun to lobby for community participation in local governance. The Musikavanhu Project links 30 families farming in Harare’s low-income suburb of Budiriro and Glen Norah under the belief that power is found in numbers. The group’s goals include gaining food security and income to the marginalized in their community by growing food and cash crops in a sustainable way, persuading authorities to add farming to land-use plans, and networking stakeholders in support of their program to empower the urban voiceless. Private institutions, such as schools, hospitals, churches and factories, have begun contributing to the urban agriculture movement by giving the poor access to their land for food cultivation. Individuals and cooperatives can now gain leaseholds to public lands for a period of two years, granted that no permanent development occurs. This shift in attitude is essential in solidifying urban agriculture’s prominence in the city.
Zimbabwe’s governmental policies should support, rather than discourage or even merely tolerate, urban agriculture as an essential source of income and food security for the city’s poor. With guaranteed support, as well as educational information about fertilizer use, urban food producers will have incentives to cultivate their plots with a sense of responsibility and personal investment. Community gardens can capitalize on Harare’s fertile land and irrigation water from rivers to grow vegetables for diverse diets. Furthermore, gardening can provide a connection to the Earth that people may lose in the migration from rural areas to cities. With the strong trend of urbanization, it is important that people maintain bonds with nature to protect our climate and environment.
OTHER CASE STUDIES
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Works Cited
Brickhill, Joan, “Investigating the Impact of Urban Agriculture in Harare, Zimbabwe,” IDRC Archive. 1998. 3 December 2008.
Kamete, Amin Y., “Governance for Sustainability? Balancing Social and Environmental Concerns in Harare,” Chr. Michelson Institute 2002. 2 December 2008.
Mougeot, Luc, ed. Agropolis: The Social, Political and Environmental Dimensions of Urban Agriculture. London: Earthscan, 2005
Velez-Guerra, Andres, “Multiple Means of Access to Land for Urban Agriculture,” Cities Feeding People Report Series, IRDC 2004. 3 December 2008.