African Urban Harvest

How much does urban agriculture help feed and support the billions of people living in the world's towns and cities? How could it do this better? Crop cultivation and livestock- raising have long histories in urban Africa, as in other areas of the world, but broad awareness among researchers and policy makers of either the history or the contemporary facts of life in African urban development is much more recent. With a majority of the continent's population expected to be classified as urban in about 20 years, and its urban population spending as much as 80 percent of their household budgets on food, this book seeks to answer the two timely questions above with practical proposals for technical interventions and policy support. Based on evidence from studies conducted in Eastern and Central Africa, it draws out implications for practice, policy, and further research throughout the developing world.

The need to emphasize both technology and policy support for urban agriculture is a consequence of two other histories, of agricultural research on the one hand, and of urban institutions and policy in Africa on the other. With limited exceptions, urban agriculture has until recently been marginalized, ignored or proscribed in these histories. Featuring research undertaken in several cities in Cameroon, Kenya, and Uganda, the authors present an in-depth analysis of urban agriculture, livelihoods and markets; urban ecosystem health; and the kinds of policy and institutional change related to urban agriculture that have been achieved in the three countries through the partnership platforms and stakeholder dialogue established in the participating cities. The book will be useful to the aid community, consultants to, and governments of developing nations, non-governmental organizations involved in development and academic programs and students.