Shaping Urban Agriculture in Megacities: Producer-consumer Relationships

Clémentine Calvier's dissertation* published in 2020 explores urban agriculture's potentialities and viability in megacities (i.e. at least 20 millions inhabitants), which are expected to boom in the future as 68% of the world population will live in cities by 2050 (source: FAO). This comes with great challenges that jeopardize planetary boundaries and humans' life quality. Calvier's work aims to identify the best practices, regulations and processes that foster efficient and fair urban agriculture, towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals at the city level.

Megacities' future challenges and urban agriculture today

The prospect of increasing urbanization worsens the vicious circle of conventional agriculture. The farming industry today is accountable for 70% of freshwater use and is the largest land consumer worldwide. With growing urban demand for food and freshwater, conventional agriculture will put a greater strain on ecosystems and their biodiversity as well as further emit greenhouse gas.