Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating food in and around cities. It has a long history, including techniques used by ancient Mesoamerican civilizations like the Chinampa and terraced agriculture in Machu Picchu. Modern urban agriculture has objectives like increasing food security and quality while being environmentally sustainable. It takes various forms like urban farming, rooftop gardens, vertical gardens, aquaculture, and vermicomposting. Mexico has implemented several urban agriculture projects and organizations that promote techniques like rooftop gardens, aquaponics, and vermicomposting to improve sustainable local food production.

1. Urban Agriculture
mariomgck
Stephanie Dunbar1
1
English teacher
May 21, 2013
Centro de Investigación
en Matemáticas, A.C.

2. Denition
Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing, and
distributing food in or around a village, town, or city. Urban
agriculture can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture,
agroforestry, and horticulture. These activities also occur in
peri-urban areas as well.
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3. History
Chinampa is a method of ancient Mesoamerican agriculture
which used small, rectangle-shaped areas of fertile arable land
to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico.
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4. History
In Machu Picchu, water was conserved and reused as part of
the stepped architecture of the city, and vegetable beds were
designed to gather sun in order to prolong the growing season.
Figure: Machu Picchu terrace (agriculture).
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5. Objectives
Food security. Increase the amount of food available to
people living in cities.
Food quality. Provide to urban consumers fresh vegetables,
fruits, and meat products free of pesticides, hormones, growth
promoters, antibiotics, etc.
Sustainable agriculture. Make the most ecient use of
non-renewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate,
where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls.
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6. Advantages
Scalability. The systems could be designed on a small or
medium scale, adapting their production to dierent conditions
of availability of space.
Health Quality. Enhance the quality of life for farmers and
society as a whole.
Recreativity. Family recreation and relaxation in a natural
aesthetics space.
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7. Modalities
(a) Urban Farming (b) Roof gardens
(c) Vertical gardens (d) Recreativity
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8. Modalities
(e) Aquaculture of tilapia (f) Aquaponics
(g) Urban Worm Compost-
ing (Vermicompost)
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9. Roof garden in Mexico
The supermarket Superama Horacio, Polanco, in Mexico city has a
system for capturing rainwater, which is used in its daily operations,
reducing potable water consumption. Its desing permits the use of
the same water to irrigate the roof.
Figure: Superama Roof garden.
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10. Aquaculture of tilapia
Tilapia has become the third most important sh in aquaculture
after carp and salmon. Tilapia sheries originated in Africa and
currently worldwide production exceeded 3,497,391 metric tons in
2010 and increases annually.
Figure: Floating surface cages.
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11. Aquaponics
Aquaponics is a sustainable food production system that combines
a traditional aquaculture with hydroponics (cultivating plants in
water) in a symbiotic environment. México began research in this
area seven years ago. The aquaculture department of CICESE has
designed a system that combines strawberry production and tilapia.
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12. Vermicompost
Vermicompost is the product or process of composting using
various worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and other
earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing
vegetable or food waste, bedding materials.
Figure: Mexican vermicompost. Ivonne Escobedo, Mayra López y
Deyanira Escobedo, asociación civil Organización para la Atención
Ciudadana.
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13. Mexican projects
The Government of Mexico city signed a trade agrement in 2010
with the agriculture department (SAGARPA), which includes an
investment of 105 million pesos to boost farm production projects,
farmers and small industrial city dwellers.
Figure: Urban Farming.
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14. Organizations
Sembradores Urbanos is a civil organization based in Mexico City,
Mexico, which promotes urban agriculture, oering materials,
seeds, and training workshops. It has a demonstration center, the
Center for Urban Agriculture Romita, which opened in 2007 as the
rst urban agricultural community space in Mexico.
Click into the picture to watch the video in youtube.
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15. References
http://www.uaaan.mx/postgrado/index.php/contactos.html
http://artenlazotea.mx/
http://www.metrohuerto.com/
http://agriculturaurbanamexico.blogspot.mx/
http://www.sagarpa.gob.mx/saladeprensa/boletines2/paginas/2011B
http://www.huertoromita.com/
http://www.comuntierra.org/site/index.php
http://www.eco-esfera.mx/
http://www.fao.org/fcit/upa/en/
http://www.pptbackgroundstemplates.com/nature/523-
agriculture-and-oriculture-backgrounds.html
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16. References
http://www.backtotheroots.com/
http://aquaponicsassociation.org/
http://www.eluniversaltv.com.mx/detalle.php?d=24553
http://www.tilapiademexico.org/
http://www.funprover.org
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2008/04/15/index.php?section=cienci
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