Urban Agriculture and Household Food Security in Cities

Urban agriculture is a veritable tool for improving household food security in major cities of the world.
It also creates employment and livelihood opportunities for poor urban households and provides
additional income for economic empowerment thereby reducing poverty. Urban agriculture holds the
potential for complementing primary source of food for urban farmers in developing countries.
However, in some African countries like Nigeria, urban planning and development approaches do not
consider food production as an objective; thus, food production capacity may become severely
constrained as urbanization proceeds. In the absence of friendly land use policy and plan that
encourage urban agriculture, city farmers are subjected to harassment and subsequent eviction from
government lands. It is recommended that urban agriculture should be integrated into national food
security policies or food aid programs of aid organizations to facilitate access of low-income and poor
urban communities to technical assistance and extension programs. There arises the need for a close
and efficient collaboration between stakeholders who include national governments, municipal
authorities, aid organizations and civil society actors through adequate national urban agriculture
policies that will guide and direct the design of urban agriculture in order to reduce food insecurity.