The current global urban population is expected to double by 2050, with 90 percent of urban growth taking place in developing countries. Many cities are ill equipped to handle such large-scale expansion. Various cities are starting to recognise urban
agriculture as an integral part of urban planning, upgrading and design. They are including urban agriculture in land use planning, social housing programmes and slum upgrading. This article describes some examples of their strategies.

The financial crisis of 2007/2008 had far-reaching impacts on developing countries, especially in cities which are more directly embedded in the global economy. Declining economic activity, negative effects on the terms of trade with the rich world and consequent job losses, as well as reduced remittances from family members working abroad, disproportionately affected urban households.

Pig raising is one of the main activities carried out by urban farmers in periurban areas of northern and southern Lima, due to a lack of water for irrigation in the desert climate. The RUAF FStT programme collaborated with the producer organisation
AGROSILVES to improve the productivity and profitability of its farmer members, by applying the production chain approach and strengthening their organisation.

The objective of Agromere, a planning concept for an area situated in the rapidly growing Dutch city of Almere (185,000 inhabitants), was to explore opportunities to re-integrate agriculture into modern Dutch city life, while at the same time
inspiring stakeholders to incorporate urban agriculture in the city’s actual development plan. Through a combined stakeholder and design process, a virtual city district on 250 ha was designed which integrates living space (for 5,000 inhabitants)

Agricultural development towards food, nutrition and livelihood security is high on the political agenda in Sri Lanka. A number of national programmes (e.g. Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu 2007-2010 and Divi Neguma) have focussed on achieving greater self-sufficiency at household level in order to reach a higher GDP in the agricultural sector with higher economic returns. Recently, national priorities have included the development of food-secure resilient cities, and in this regard, the Western Province has been a forerunner, having commenced its urban agriculture campaign already in 2000.

Although quite a number of experiences with community supported agriculture (CSA) and box schemes in Europe and the United States have been documented, there are not so many examples from the South. Abalimi/Harvest of Hope is a special case even in the South, as it is a social enterprise that works with poor people in urban areas who are the producers of the vegetables.

Many poor urban households are active in local production of food and related activities (e.g. food processing and street vending of food, compost making, supply of animal feed).

This paper summarises work attempting to answer two apparently simple questions: Can urban agriculture reduce urban poverty? And, if it can, in what ways can poverty be reduced? It also explores the role of value chain analysis in understanding better the role of urban agriculture.

In Vietnam, urban agriculture still represents a substantial share of food supply and employment. Its contribution to the food needs of the entire population of Hanoi was estimated at 44 per cent in 2002 (Mai et al., 2004). In the same year, over 70 per cent of leafy vegetables originated within a 30 km production radius of the city (Moustier et al., 2004).

As part of the RUAF