Urban Ag Activists Up In Arms About New Study

Gardeners across the country are pushing back after recent findings from a study out of the University of Michigan suggested urban farming is less climate-friendly than conventional farming. “The research landed as cities including Detroit, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, increasingly invest in urban agriculture to promote sustainability and become more resilient to the climate crisis,” reports Catherine Boudreau for Business Insider.

According to the study, fruits and vegetables grown on urban farms have on average six times the carbon footprint of produce from conventional farms. Critics of the study say its narrow focus on carbon emissions “overlooked the broader environmental harms of industrial-scale farming such as biodiversity loss and water pollution.” They are “worried the study would let conventional agriculture — which globally accounts for about one-third of greenhouse-gas emissions — off the hook and undermine a burgeoning movement to expand urban green spaces and promote food sovereignty,”  Boudreau writes.

Researchers acknowledge that, while urban agriculture has myriad social benefits and 17 out of the 73 urban farms their team studied across the world did have lower footprints than conventional farms, the infrastructure used to build them and the crops grown on them make a difference. According to Business Insider, the research has led some urban gardeners to reevaluate their practices and incorporate a few of the best practices outlined in the study.