Interview: City consumers could push food supply chain in new direction

By Adam Sharpe

Published: 08 December 2014 02:52 PM

Urban farming is set to expand significantly in the coming years and will likely bring with it many changes to how society and policy makers think about the way food is sourced, including a potential shift to a ‘post-supermarket’ food supply chain.

In an exclusive interview with Agra Europe, Dr Matt Reed of the UK-based Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI), discusses how the rise of farming in cities and towns could impact the relationship between urban and rural areas, and the challenges that policy makers in the EU and beyond could face when determining the future direction of urban-based agriculture.  

Agra Europe: At present, urban farming is more prevalent in the developing world, in particular south-east Asia and Africa, but some analysts contend that urban farming is more suited to developed countries. Do you predict an expansion of urban agricultural production in developed countries in the coming years? What will likely be the factors that drive this expansion?

Dr Matt Reed: I would contend that such an expansion of urban farming is already occurring as people in cities in Europe are taking matters into their own hands and there appear to be many companies looking to invest in it. The driving factors are concerns with the carbon footprint of food and the social distance between food producers and consumers, which have resulted in a desire for food grown in closer proximity to cities. This points to an important distinction between what we might call urban farming and metropolitan agriculture. By urban farming I mean farming that is based on using pockets of urban or peri-urban land for food production and also for social ends - to grow communities alongside produce, to weave the urban and the rural together in innovative ways. By metropolitan agriculture I mean that which is focused on capital intensive infrastructure, such as the proposed vertical farms or bioreactors, which would bring intensive horticulture and potentially aquaculture to urban areas.

A recent study by the International Water Management Institute suggested that urban farming can increase competition for water supplies, particularly in countries where supplies are scarce. Will factors such as this restrict the expansion of urban farming? What other factors will inhibit growth?

These are exactly the sorts of debates that will be held around the expansion of urban agriculture in all of its forms. Although some forms of production will be more efficient in terms of resource use, others won’t be and there will need to be discussion to determine the balance of resource efficiency against other outputs or outcomes. For example, community vegetable gardens or family allotments can be highly productive and present an amenity in some densely developed urban areas. In cities such as Utrecht you can see such gardens in both rich and poor areas of the city. The metropolitan agriculture proposed as a form of highly productive farming will also have a high visual impact and the same services of water, light and nutrients currently required for intensive horticulture units, but within an urban fabric.

What will be the benefits to society of more agricultural output being produced in urban centres rather than in traditional rural regions?

In some products it could see the radical shortening of the food chain, with more realistic prospects of closing the cycles of water and nutrients than is possible with longer food chains. Already, compost produced from the recycling of urban food waste has a futures market in Bristol [UK] such is the demand. Although the price of oil is falling fast at the moment meaning price pressures will lessen, this won’t stop the need for greater efficiency to minimise environmental impacts. The evaluations of the UK’s Local Food programme conducted by the CCRI found that community gardening had considerable impacts on building and developing urban communities. Shortening the social distance between food production and the majority of consumers could also result in new ways of selling food; experiments are happening at the moment with web based platforms that allow more direct exchanges between producers and consumers.

What will the impact of an increase in urban agriculture be on rural communities that are reliant on farming? Will there be a redefining of the traditional divide between urban and rural areas?

This is one of the most exciting prospects, for new relationships between rural areas and urban ones. It may mean that we need to think more in terms of networks than in blocks of space. There will be new opportunities for rural entrepreneurs in cities to teach skills, run businesses and link cities with rural areas in new ways. Equally, we may see a ‘rural-fication' of cities, as the small scale and personal communities built around food become established. The presence of farming starts to change the fabric of the city and new communities and food businesses emerge. For rural communities reliant on agriculture the rise of urban forms of agriculture may mean that they become focused on particular crops, but that has to be seen as part of a wider change. With the availability of broadband in rural areas, and the roll out of 3D printing the distinctions between rural and urban will continue to blur. New forms of interconnection will emerge, so we will need to think of rural areas as a network places rather than a block of space.

Recent studies have revealed that urban farms do not typically grow ‘calorie rich’ cereals such as wheat or rice. Rather, they most often produce high-value and nutritionally important perishable crops like fresh vegetables. Do you see this trend continuing? Will there be a distinction between what crops are produced in urban areas and what is produced in rural zones?

There is a focus on fresh vegetables and fruit, but cereals and meat still remain in rural areas and are likely to do so. The trends towards urban food could exacerbate some flows towards functional differentiation in rural areas, with dairying areas or wheat growing areas for example. In some ways this can be seen as ecologically efficient but there are important social consequences of such specialisation that need to be considered.

Picture Source: littleny/Shutterstock.com

You have described the need to prepare for a ‘post-supermarket’ food supply chain. Could you explain this term and give an idea as to how a ‘post-supermarket’ food supply chain will be constituted?

In the last 12 months I’ve heard investors talking about the vulnerability of the ‘supermarket’ business model. Those within the retail sector have started to question the future of the ‘big box’ format of the supermarket. This is not from those people ideologically opposed to them but those looking to their investments. The irony of course is that those people who are ideologically opposed to supermarkets are pointing the way to the alternatives in supply chains. With food produced in, or very close to, the city the opportunities for city wide distribution networks open up; this could be to retailers or through delivery systems such as those run by the supermarket chains at the moment, or box scheme style schemes. Production could be through private holdings, co-ops of micro-holdings or community owned projects that also have a social purpose, or combinations of all of these. The model of driving your car to the edge of the city and loading it full of supplies for the next couple of weeks is fading. Smaller amounts, when and how the consumer wants them, based on a more proximate, trusted supply chain is the shape of demand the retailers are trying to satisfy. This is the challenge for the existing players, but an opportunity for those who want to enter the market.

What new technologies are likely to be incorporated into urban farms of the future. Do you foresee an increased proportion of production utilising technologies such as genetically modified crops, precision farming and genetic research, for example?

If the model of metropolitan agriculture moves from the architects’ screens into concrete and glass, I imagine that they will use the full range of technologies the consumer and urban planners will accept. GM crops to date have largely been a promissory science; great claims have been made of its potential but have not been realised. European consumers are not really interested in the agronomic benefits they provide for producers. I think it will be more about using existing technologies and adapting them to fit the challenges that urban conditions provide. Working in proximity to residential areas may mean that operations need to be tailored in ways not previously considered, machinery may need to be scaled down and be quieter.

Will there need to be any significant changes in policy or legislation for urban farming to expand within the EU? What particular areas will need to be addressed?

Urban agriculture challenges a raft of EU policies that have been developed with a particular configuration of agriculture in mind. There is the argument that urban agriculture is multifunctional in a new way, offering amenity, recycling, closing of water and nutrient recycling, potentially wildlife and biodiversity gains along with amenity and participation. This should be supported and encouraged for many of the reasons discussed above but often the link with land ownership or control is not straightforward. There is also often no income forgone but an opportunity created. This is not just about the CAP but a raft of other directives. Our research in the EU FP7 projectSuperbfood showed the impact of the EU Waste Directives on urban farming making cities think about the possibilities of ‘waste’ in a new way. Within agricultural policy it would be helpful if the EU found ways of supporting agro-social outcomes, the building of communities with large numbers of participants from diverse backgrounds around food production that is not dependent on land ownership or control, but on the operation of the business or project. This could also extend to product marks of geographical origin which have tended to mark historic cultural identities or technologies such as organic, so why not urban origin? Questions of planning will need to be considered, if people have opposed wind farms what will they make of vertical farms in their cities? Questions previously only part of rural or agricultural policy are likely to become much more mainstream.