Urban agriculture and poverty reduction: Evaluating how food production in cities contributes to food security, employment and income in Malawi

@article{Mkwambisi2011UrbanAA,
  title={Urban agriculture and poverty reduction: Evaluating how food production in cities contributes to food security, employment and income in Malawi},
  author={David Mkwambisi and Evan David Gaviller Fraser and Andrew J. Dougill},
  journal={Journal of International Development},
  year={2011},
  volume={23},
  pages={181-203}
}
Support of urban agriculture can be used as a route to reducing urban poverty across Sub-Saharan Africa. However policy makers require more precise information on how it contributes to alleviating food insecurity and poverty problems. This study in Malawi's two main cities (Lilongwe and Blantyre) revealed two predominant ‘types’ of urban farmers: (i) low‐income, less educated, often female‐headed households, who use urban agriculture as an insurance against income losses and who can employ… 
View via Publisher
homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk
117 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
8
Background Citations
51
Methods Citations
4
Results Citations
3

Figures and Tables from this paper

117 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Urban households' engagement in agriculture: Implications for household food security in Ghana's medium sized cities
Urban and peri-urban agriculture plays an important role in meeting the food and nutrition needs of those living in the increasingly urbanised cities in Africa. The extent and scope of the practise…
Urban and peri-urban agriculture: an analysis of the perceptions and use of food sovereignty among low-income dwellers in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Food insecurity and poor nutrition in low-income urban spaces are attracting academic interest due to urbanisation and related challenges. Yet, scientific enquiry and resultant programming retain a…
Growing Out of Poverty: Does Urban Agriculture Contribute to Household Food Security in Southern African Cities?
The literature on urban agriculture (UA) as a food security and poverty alleviation strategy is bifurcating into two distinct positions. The first is that UA is a viable and effective pro-poor…
Planting to feed the city?: Agricultural production, food security and multi-spatial livelihoods among urban households in Ghana
The 2010 population and housing census in Ghana revealed that more than half of the Ghanaian population lived in urban centers. Critical to the phenomenon of urbanization is the question of how to…
Urban Fish Farming in Jos, Nigeria: Contributions towards Employment Opportunities, Income Generation, and Poverty Alleviation for Improved Livelihoods
TLDR
Results show that the lack of reliable water supplies and high production costs are some of the most constraining problems that militate against operational effectiveness and efficiency, along with poor marketing of their produce and lack of preservation facilities in an environment of urban deprivation.
Barriers to urban agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract Trends in urbanization and urban food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have stimulated critical debates around the potential benefits of urban agriculture (UA) to urban livelihoods.…
Urban Agriculture in Zambia
  • T. Binns, E. Nel
  • Business
    Rural Areas Between Regional Needs and Global Challenges
  • 2019
Urban agriculture (UA) involves the production of food crops and often the raising of livestock within and around urban areas on either private property or common land. It is a common practice in…
Small-scale Subsistence Farming, Food Security, Climate Change and Adaptation in South Africa: Male-Female Headed Households and Urban-Rural Nexus
This study examines the role of gender of the head of household on the food security of small-scale subsistence farmers in urban and rural areas of South Africa, using the exogenous switching…
Urban crop production and poverty alleviation in Eldoret, Kenya: Implications for policy and gender planning
Urban agriculture (UA) has recently received increasing attention in both scholarly and policy cycles as a potential tool for poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper focuses on urban…
A systematic review of urban agriculture and food security impacts in low-income countries
With increasing global urbanization and environmental threats, ensuring food security for poor city residents is a critical challenge. An ongoing debate is whether urban agriculture (UA) may serve as…
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 103 REFERENCES
Urban Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition in Low Income Areas of the City of Nairobi, Kenya
This article considers the extent to which farming activities undertaken by low-income dwellers in Nairobi, Kenya, play a role in the food security and nutritional status of the households involved.…
Urban Agriculture: Who Cultivates and why? a Case-Study of Lusaka, Zambia
Contrary to the official view that rejects urban cultivation as an irrational activity by a small group of recent migrants who have yet to be integrated into the urban environment, urban agriculture…
The Political Economy of Urban Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan African cities in the late 1990s face a daunting set of problems including rapid growth, increasing poverty, deteriorating infrastructure, and inadequate capacity for service provision.…
AGROPOLIS: the social, political and environmental dimensions of urban agriculture.
Introduction * Survival of the Poorest: Migration and Food Security in Namibia * The Pest-control System in the Market Gardens of Lom , Togo * Determinants of Urban Livestock Adoption in the 'Zone…
The household strategies of the urban poor: Coping with poverty and recession in Gweru, Zimbabwe☆
Abstract The majority of the urban working poor in Zimbabwe have always been, and still are, in formal wage employment. Despite the failure of wage increases since independence to keep pace with…
Placing the food system on the urban agenda: The role of municipal institutions in food systems planning
Food issues are generally regarded as agricultural and rural issues. The urban food system is less visible than such other systems as transportation, housing, employment, or even the environment. The…
Survival and accumulation strategies at the rural-urban interface in north-west Tanzania
  • J. Baker
  • Economics, Geography
    Environment and urbanization
  • 1995
TLDR
The most successful village households appear to be those which use urban opportunities and assets to diversify income sources and thereby avoid the uncertainties of relying solely on marketable crop production for household security.
Female wage labor in rural Zimbabwe
Abstract Research on rural women in Africa, including Zimbabwe, has tended to emphasize women's role as farmers or food producers. Research conducted by the author suggests, however, that a…
Urban agriculture and food security, nutrition and health.
The concept of food security has been on the international agenda as far back as 1948, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living…
Ganyu casual labour, famine and HIV/AIDS in rural Malawi: causality and casualty
  • D. Bryceson
  • Economics
    The Journal of Modern African Studies
  • 2006
Over the past ten years, Malawian peasant farming households have endured a number of material and life-threatening setbacks. The absence of subsidised fertiliser loans to farmers continues to…
...
1
2
3
4
5
...