Modelling the Benefits and Impacts of Urban Agriculture: Employment, Economy of Scale and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

This paper examines the social, economic and environmental potential of Urban Agriculture (UA) based on information from forty distinct locations in each of the two regions: Adelaide, South Australia and Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, representing the diverse developmental background. Modelling is used to estimate equivalent employment, scale appropriateness, and earnings in comparison to labour use from commercial urban farming and gardening style UA, together with carbon dioxide emissions for two vegetable types. The study investigates the influence of distance and production scale under manual to modest mechanisation for urban vegetable production, finding that the interplay between labour use and mechanisation can favour scale-appropriate UA practices with better labour productivity and economic and social advantage. The distribution (assumed to be by car for UA) contributes the largest proportion of emissions, and the production component (even with mechanisation) contributes a relatively small portion per unit of production. We recommend that governments and planners should facilitate scale-appropriate mechanisation through better planning and policy instruments for UA’s sustainability.