Sia Social Impact Assessment

ASSIGNMENT 07

Student Number: 53733444

Module Code

: DVA 3702

Module Title

: Rural and Urban Development

Semester

: 01

Due Date

: 24 March 2016

Unique Number: 747619

Title: Discuss urban agriculture as a survival strategy in today’s urban context.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

1 Introduction

............2

2 The need for survival by low-income urban households

…...………2

3 The nature of urban agriculture as a survival strategy

…….….…3

4 Negative aspects of urban agricultural activities as survival strategies

….….….….3

5 Positive aspects of urban agricultural activities as survival strategies

….………….4

6 The viability of urban agriculture as survival strategy

………..…...5

7 Conclusion

...…………..5

8 Bibliography

1

…………….6

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Urban agriculture as a survival strategy in today’s urban context

2

Urban agriculture is a land system use for agricultural activities such as vegetable, fruit and

maize production, and animal husbandry (chickens, pigs, sheep and dairy cows) within the

urban environment. It has positive effects on the socio economic status of the low-income

urban households as it boosts food security, alleviate poverty and enhance sustainable

livelihoods for disadvantaged urban dwellers. However as in Zimbabwe presently, urban 3

agriculture is often regarded as illegal and usually ignored by planners and policy makers yet it

is a survival strategy for poverty alleviation, reducing ecological footprint of urban cities and

sustainable development for economical disadvantaged livelihoods of urban dwellers. For the

poor urban households in their state of poverty have devised a way of supplementing their

needs for food security and income therefore they have expressed it through urban agriculture.

4

According to Maxwell (1995) states that “urban municipal councils were not keen to allow

urban cities to practice urban agriculture for the following reasons , it was perceived as an

artifact of rural life, regarded as a nuisance to the urban environment and...