Research On The Feasibility And Strategies Of Urban Agriculture In Urban Built-up Area In China

Existing studies have shown that urban agriculture can contribute significantly tourban sustainablility and food security. In developing and even developed countriesurban agriculture is considered as an important strategy to promote the healthy andsustainability of cities. Especially in the United States and Canada, urban agriculture isincreasingly appearing on every corner of urban areas by integrating urban agricultureinto urban life. Thanks to professionals in the fields of urban planning, landscapearchitecture and architecture who actively have been participating in the integration ofurban agriculture into urban development, their works have made a big progress: relatedplanning and design theories are formed; even planning regulations are also makingadjustment for adapting to the development of urban agriculture. Some U.S. cities havemodified Zoning in order to facilitate the integration of urban agriculture into urbanspace, the revised zoning codes allow and encourage the use of urban commercial land,industrial land, residential land, and buildings for commercial ornon-commercial agricultural production, such as in Kansas City, Seattle and SanFrancisco. This is a solid pace urban agriculture has taken.In China, the research and practice of urban agriculture in suburbs and peri-urbanhas yielded fruitful results with strong government support. However, the development ofChina's urban agriculture is in a passive situation due to that urban agriculture isconsidered a peri-urban phenomenon, which results in the limited research and practicesin urban built-up areas. It is the major difference of China from U.S.In order to analyse the feasibility of UA in China's urban built-area, in thisdissertation the concept of urban agriculture is subdivided into two types, which areurban agriculture within cities and peri-urban agriculture around cities. Although earlystudies of urban agriculture from international NGOs have already found out that urbanagriculture happens within and around cities. However, a more respectively detailedresearch on both are difficult to conduct due to the differences of land-use policy,planning regulations and government system in each country. In China, urban agriculturein built-up areas is controlled under the legislation on urban planning mostly, urban agriculture in peri-urban area under the legislation on land use and farmland protection.Only by subdividing UA combined with China's actual situation, the research of thefeasibility and strategies of urban agriculture will be workable, and finally take solidaction to deal with the passive situation and make a progress, such as how to integrateUA into legislation on urban planning. Therefore,"urban agriculture in urban built-uparea" is the objective of the research.The research is conducted in the following4aspects:(1) Research on the current situation of urban agriculture in urban built-up area.The situation of urban agriculture in urban built-up area keeps unknown byresearchers; little research is conducted. In this part, the city of Wuhan is explored as atypical case. a large number of field studies revealed a real landscape of urban agriculturein built-up area, and proved that the advantages of it to urban sustainablility and foodsecurity.(2) Research on U.S. urban agriculture, including its types, motivation, planning anddesign theories and legislation adjustments as the reference of the future actions on urbanagriculture in China.(3) A feasibility analysis of urban agriculture in urban built-up area in China.(4) Strategies for urban agriculture in China's urban built-up area,including:â‘ fullinvestigation of the situation of urban agriculture;â‘¡recommendation on types and theirclassification;â‘¢guidelines on planning and design;â‘£integartion into legislation onurban planning.The study on urban agriculture in China's urban built-up area fills the gaps in thisfield, and facilitates professionals in urban planning and design to solve urban issues byurban agriculture and promote the overall sustainability and food security.