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Porter, J., Deutsch, L., Dumaresq, D. et al. How will growing cities eat?. Nature 469, 34 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/469034d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/469034d
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Potential and observed food flows in a Chinese city: a case study of Tianjin
Agriculture and Human Values (2012)
Michael Lardelli
It is great to see Nature giving page-space to this issue.
What the letter does not mention is the central role of fossil fuels and fertilizers in growing sufficient food for cities and then transporting it long distances to them. The fact that world phosphate production may be past peak (see http://www.energybulletin.n..., that oil production has plateaued and will soon decline (http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/... and that even energy from coal may be more limited than previously believed (http://www.nature.com/natur... will greatly impact our ability to feed cities in future. When considering urban planning we need to realise that the most important impact of oil production decline will be on food production, not transport. Declining nutrient availability means that recycling of human wastes (rather than flushing them away through sewerage systems) will be essential for survival. Declining energy availability means that high-energy strategies for nutrient recycling, (including many high-tech solutions with their huge embodied energy costs) will not be viable. Transport distances must be decreased so food growing in and nearby cities will be essential. More mouths anywhere also means more food must be produced somewhere so limiting human populations sizes is an essential part of the sustainability equation.
Jean SmilingCoyote
Cities are basically CAFOs as far as feeding the people goes. I wonder if there's any transferable information. I have a schematic approach to community planning which puts a food garden in the center of every residential block. I don't know when I'll get a chance to have anything built to use this, as I'm still seeking an opportunity. Backyard food production naturally tends to be more "organic" because of people's safety concerns. Interestingly, my city of Chicago will soon hold a hearing on a proposed new ordinance on urban agriculture.
Erle Ellis
Much evidence disagrees with the hypothesis that 'larger cities will sequester proportionately larger and more marginal, low-productivity areas of land'. Larger yes, more marginal, no. Urbanization improves diets and this increases per capita agricultural demand, and therefore demand overall, but this is not met by expansion of low productivity agricultural systems ('extensification'). As cities grow larger, they become wealthier and better connected to trading systems- so they do draw from larger, more global food sources. However, these large demands for agricultural commodities are met by large-scale industrial agriculture- driving an _intensification _ of agricultural production, which focuses on the best agricultural land- the opposite of marginal areas. In fact, urbanization and industrial agriculture are both associated with forest recovery in many developed regions, including Europe, the USA and China (the forest transition ); marginal agriculture is abandoned as small-scale farming is replaced by industrial agriculture and the urban population implosion continues.