Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FOODCITYBOOST (Integrated assessment of urban farming impacts and policies for boosting sustainable urban agricultural development linking urban, peri-urban and rural areas)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30
Europe’s rural and urban areas are facing increasing negative impacts from climate change, biodiversity loss, unsustainable resource use, and an increasing disconnect between citizens from urban and rural areas. Throughout Europe’s cities, different types of urban farming, such as gardens, rooftop or vertical farming, have emerged which could provide impactful responses to these megatrends. Policy-makers and practitioners urgently need knowledge on the benefits, impacts and risks of urban farming, to help them shape policy and legal frameworks.
FOODCITYBOOST develops a knowledge-based decision-support tool, consisting of (i) evidence-based indicators of environmental, social and economic performance and impacts of urban farming at farm, regional and EU scale and providing (ii) guidance on policy instruments that foster the development of urban farming. The decision-support tool is based on an evaluation of current benefits, risks, and impacts of urban farming to communities in urban, rural, and peri-urban areas. The future potential of urban farming is assessed in foresight analysis and scenario analysis, and novel types of urban farming are developed and tested through prototyping.
FOODCITYBOOST closely collaborates with >100 stakeholders from 6 locations, based on the idea of living labs (LLs). This allows us to learn from regions throughout Europe where urban farming thrives and is supported by regional policies. FOODCITYBOOST brings together expertise on social science and humanities, land systems, urban farming, and life cycle assessment. We connect to the EFUA and NEW BAUHAUS initiatives to best take stock of recent insights, which allows us to stimulate the development of a varied landscape of urban farming that optimally fulfils the needs of communities and minimises negative impacts and risks.
FOODCITYBOOST develops a knowledge-based decision-support tool, consisting of (i) evidence-based indicators of environmental, social and economic performance and impacts of urban farming at farm, regional and EU scale and providing (ii) guidance on policy instruments that foster the development of urban farming. The decision-support tool is based on an evaluation of current benefits, risks, and impacts of urban farming to communities in urban, rural, and peri-urban areas. The future potential of urban farming is assessed in foresight analysis and scenario analysis, and novel types of urban farming are developed and tested through prototyping.
FOODCITYBOOST closely collaborates with >100 stakeholders from 6 locations, based on the idea of living labs (LLs). This allows us to learn from regions throughout Europe where urban farming thrives and is supported by regional policies. FOODCITYBOOST brings together expertise on social science and humanities, land systems, urban farming, and life cycle assessment. We connect to the EFUA and NEW BAUHAUS initiatives to best take stock of recent insights, which allows us to stimulate the development of a varied landscape of urban farming that optimally fulfils the needs of communities and minimises negative impacts and risks.
The project has set up a robust framework for the evaluation of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts based on data collection which started in the different living labs in Valladolid (Spain), Brussels and Flanders (Belgium), Almere (Netherlands), Wroclaw (Poland), Riga (Latvia) and Sofia (Bulgaria). Governance and policy aspects have been explored through inventories, stakeholder workshops, and cross-site exchanges, leading to a collaboratively developed Catalogue of Good practices. Building on these, place-based governance visions are being co-designed, with roadmaps prepared to guide their implementation in the next phases. Scenario-building exercises have identified 20 key trends that shape the future of UA, with four plausible visions being refined. To prepare for a design session of innovative urban agricultural systems, a survey was launched to track the development of groundbreaking UA innovations coupled with a literature review which allowed identification of more than 400 projects, from which 30 exemplary cases have been selected for a catalogue to inspire resilient systems. Site-specific co-design workshops are being prepared in several LLs. The potential local and large-scale impacts of urban farming are being investigated through tools for system-level analysis, studies on the role of allotment gardens in mitigating urban heat islands, assessments of food security contributions using foodshed approaches, and detailed inventories of urban farming across multiple European cities.
-Increased synergies and planning for research activities in the 6 different project Living Labs (LLs).
-A strong analytical framework of urban agriculture (UA) for capturing the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of different types of UA and a method for stakeholder interaction for the assessment.
-The definition of 5 key social and economic dimensions encompassing 20 indicators in the context of UA practices.
-Surveys and training materials for data collection in urban farms, aimed at gathering information on the socioeconomic impacts of urban agriculture, as well as on the activities and inputs (e.g. water, fertilizers, pesticides) associated with potential environmental impacts and used in Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA).
Production of 33 Life Cycle Inventories (LCIs), each representing the primary and secondary data of a specific urban farm and covering different types of urban agriculture, to perform a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) across seven impact categories: climate change, acidification, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, ecotoxicity, resource use, and water depletion.
-A short and simplified guide to perform different soil analyses without the need of a laboratory - so far available in English and Spanish.
-43 stakeholders engaged in five initiating policy and governance workshops across the six LLs.
-A Catalogue of Good Practices evaluating 15 good practices for improve policy and governance of UA.
-The identifications of +100 trends in the urban and food system that impact UA development.
-A catalogue of 30+ of the most innovative UA practices with their potential impacts on different dimensions.
-A review of 111 publications assessing the sustainability of urban farming, revealing the diversity of urban agriculture contributions and indicators, and highlighting methodological gaps relevant to the evaluation of overall UA impacts.
-Assessment of 682 European Functional Urban Areas showing that allotments providing cooling services to 4.1 million habitants.
-Mapping of 875 UA initiatives in 11 cities that show that UA develop near city centres with more urban green spaces in rather low-income areas .
-A strong analytical framework of urban agriculture (UA) for capturing the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of different types of UA and a method for stakeholder interaction for the assessment.
-The definition of 5 key social and economic dimensions encompassing 20 indicators in the context of UA practices.
-Surveys and training materials for data collection in urban farms, aimed at gathering information on the socioeconomic impacts of urban agriculture, as well as on the activities and inputs (e.g. water, fertilizers, pesticides) associated with potential environmental impacts and used in Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA).
Production of 33 Life Cycle Inventories (LCIs), each representing the primary and secondary data of a specific urban farm and covering different types of urban agriculture, to perform a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) across seven impact categories: climate change, acidification, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, ecotoxicity, resource use, and water depletion.
-A short and simplified guide to perform different soil analyses without the need of a laboratory - so far available in English and Spanish.
-43 stakeholders engaged in five initiating policy and governance workshops across the six LLs.
-A Catalogue of Good Practices evaluating 15 good practices for improve policy and governance of UA.
-The identifications of +100 trends in the urban and food system that impact UA development.
-A catalogue of 30+ of the most innovative UA practices with their potential impacts on different dimensions.
-A review of 111 publications assessing the sustainability of urban farming, revealing the diversity of urban agriculture contributions and indicators, and highlighting methodological gaps relevant to the evaluation of overall UA impacts.
-Assessment of 682 European Functional Urban Areas showing that allotments providing cooling services to 4.1 million habitants.
-Mapping of 875 UA initiatives in 11 cities that show that UA develop near city centres with more urban green spaces in rather low-income areas .