Introducing an integrative evaluation framework for assessing the sustainability of different types of urban agriculture

ABSTRACT

In cities, a mosaic of different types of urban agriculture can be found. However, knowledge about advantages and disadvantages of the different types is still fragmented. This paper introduces an integrative evaluation framework for assessing the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of urban agriculture by applying a multi-criteria analysis based on an Analytic Hierarchy Process and a participatory approach. Based on a German case study and on the examples of vertical farming and community-supported agriculture, the results suggest that sustainable urban agriculture is a multi-dimensional approach informed by strong sustainability that places nature in the focus. Thus, the environmental dimension received the highest weight, followed by the social and, lastly, the economic dimension. Regarding the sub-criteria, species diversity achieved the highest total weight and food quality and safety the lowest. Conceptually, this paper provides scientific fundamentals for a systematic comparative evaluation of different types of agriculture for sustainable urban development.

KEYWORDS:

• Vertical farming
• community-supported agriculture
• biodiversity
• climate regulation
• circular economy
• participation
• education
• community building
• food quality and affordability
• local value chains

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mabel Killinger and Marie Herzig for their help in stakeholder identification as well as all experts and stakeholders for their participation in the two online surveys and their helpful comments. Data processing and analysis by means of an Analytic Hierarchy Process in R would not have been possible without the help of Björn Kasper.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent for publication

All authors mentioned in the manuscript have agreed for authorship, read and approved the manuscript, and given consent for submission and subsequent publication of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This project is funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft—DFG) (grant number: AR 1121/1-2).

Notes on contributors

Henriette John

Henriette John is a post-doctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), Dresden (Germany. Her research interests include landscape ecology, nature conservation, biodiversity, biotope network, mapping and monitoring of species and habitats and sustainable management of habitats of open landscapes.

Martina Artmann

Martina Artmann is a professor of green infrastructure at the Department of Landscape Architecture, Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences, Freising (Germany) and leads the Research Group Urban Human-Nature Resonance at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), Dresden (Germany). Her research interests include urban human-nature relationships for sustainability transformations, edible cities, urban agriculture and sustainable human-food relationships.