Evidence shows that our current agricultural practices and food supply chains are unsustainable, especially as we need to find solutions for feeding growing urban populations. The agricultural sector makes use of 72% of freshwater (FAO, 2023a), accounts for one-third of greenhouse emissions (FAO, 2023b), and has damaged biodiversity and caused soil depletion (FAO, 2022). In addition, 79% of all food produced is consumed in cities (FAO et al., 2022). Therefore, alternative futures are necessary, especially in the Nordic and Baltic countries which are vulnerable due to their high dependency on exports for feeding their populations.
The stories presented in this report are seeds for change towards sustainable and resilient futures. Each of the stories reimagine the urban environment as a productive ecosystem, demand rethinking legal frameworks, claim for innovation in food production, and create transformative knowledge and social learning.
Different actors have voiced the challenges and opportunities of initiating and implementing urban agriculture in these stories. They represent a mix of top-down (e.g., Stockholm Royal Seaport, NMBU) and bottom-up (e.g., Dodo, Växthuset på Berga) initiatives to promote the production of food in cities while asserting that urban agriculture is able to respond to different purposes and fullfil several objectives relevant for urban sustainability.
While urban agriculture suffers from the stigma of being a leisurely activity, different actors in cities need to effectively embrace and sustain the longevity of urban agriculture, which requires the recognition of it as a transformative practice. Afterall, urban agriculture seems to offer pathways to achieving broader environmental, social, and economic outcomes that our cities urgently require.