The Growth of the Slow Food Movement in the U.S. through Urban Agriculture - Research Paper Example

? Content Analysis paper on the growth of the slow food movement in the U.S. through urban agriculture Introduction Urbanization can be defined as the proportion of the population of a country living in the urban areas, leading to a decline in the population in the rural areas. Today, in most of the developed countries majority of the population are living in urban areas instead of rural areas. Due to industrialization many rural areas have turned into urban areas. Urban food and nutrition system started to features which included an increase in the dietary diversity, preference towards western style food which are rich in refined carbohydrate and fat. As a result of such food habits the urban population across the developed countries started to suffer from diseases such as Diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. As the rural areas started to decrease the amount of vegetation in developed countries also started to go down. Therefore in order to maintain ecological balance, various environmental activists started to encourage the concept of urban agriculture. Also various food movements were initiated by various health and environmental activists across various developed countries to increase awareness among the people about healthy diet. One of such movement was the slow food movement initiated in 1986. The present study looks to analyze the cause effect relationship between the urban agriculture and slow food movement in USA. The study looks to explore the presence of any significant impact of urban agriculture on the recent growth of slow food movement (Tracey, 2011). As mentioned above due to increase in urbanization the level of vegetation has gone down. Also the majority of the people residing in the urban areas are suffering from diet inequality. Therefore various environmental activists are encouraging movements related to vegetation and healthy diets. Keeping such factors in mind it can be said that the study is of great significance. The research question has been formed as: "What are the trends of Slow Food relative to urban agriculture in the U.S.?" Background In 1900, there were 6.7 rural inhabitants for each urban inhabitant on global basis. Presently, there is less than one rural inhabitant for each urban inhabitant on global basis. Forecasts show that by 2025, there are likely to be three urban inhabitants for two rural inhabitants. The rapid economic growth of the global economy and the economically active population working is the industries in the main reason behind such developments. The urban population of the world surpassed the rural population off the world for the first time in 2008. As far as United States is concerned, according to the statistics of Population reference bureau, an astonishing 79% of the total population of USA lives in urban areas. The agricultural production of the country has been able to meet the demand of the food of the urban population by producing green house emission intensive food. However, various studies have revealed that majority of the urban population living in USA face under nutrition on daily basis. A considerable proportion of the population living in US urban areas have such low income that they even lack the ability to produce foods. These people also get threatened due to the rise in the price of the staple foods. The challenge of providing nutritious foods to the city inhabitants is quite substantial. Attainting this goal, under conditions of congestion and growth needs the policy makers and capitalize on the opportunity to integrate the resource management and planning efforts. Also the policy makers need to understand the potential relationships between the urban and rural areas and anticipation of the changing demands of the citizens of the country. One part of the reason observed would be the growth in the Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (UPA) is mainly due to the mobility and adaptability compared to the rural agriculture. As the cities are expanding physically, the linkage between the urban, rural and Peri-urban activities are beginning to get merged providing opportunities for complementary linkages (Mougeot, 2006). Urbanization can be defined as the increasing in the share of the population of a country living in the urban areas as opposed to the rural areas. Majority of the urbanization is actually a result of the rural to urban migration. The definition of urbanization makes the implications of the urbanization different from that of the growth of urban areas and the physical expansion of the urban areas. Quite of both, growth in urban population and the expansion of the urban areas are treated a synonym of urbanization. The definition of the rural agriculture actually varies from one region to another; one country to another. In the last five years, such definitions have increased to include a lot more than simple production of the food in the urban areas. In the year 2007 the community of food security provided a comprehensive definition of the urban agriculture to cover the various dimensions of the practice. Urban ad Peri-Urban agriculture can be described as the production, distribution and marketing of food and also other products in the core metropolitan areas which include community, schools gardens, and roof top horticulture. This also includes innovative food production techniques used to maximize the production in the urban farmers markets and communities that support agriculture. Broadly, UPA can be defined as complex activities that look to focus on the core issues of the food sectary, environment sustainability and farm land preservation. There are mainly two types of the urban agriculture; one is commercial and other one is non commercial (Nordahl, 2009). Noncommercial Private Garden Mainly produces private food in the front or backyard, courtyard or rooftops. Usually these are attended by individuals. Community Garden These are mainly small or medium scale productions producing ornamental or food producing plants. Institutional gardens Small to large orchards or food producing gardens located mainly on private institutional properties like school or hospitals or offices. Demonstration Garden These are mainly small producing gardens located on public or private properties Edible Landscape These are food producing plants used in the design of private, residential, commercial and public spaces Guerrilla Garden These happen to be cultivation of the food producing and ornamental plants in unauthorized and abandoned properties. Hobby beekeeping This includes keeping of small scale honey bees for personal usage. Commercial Market Garden Small and medium scale production of ornament and food producing plants. The end products are usually sold on site or off sites. Urban Farm Typically these are bigger than the market gardens. These include large scale production of ornamental plans and food producing plants, fish, poultry. Peri urban farm Such farms are practices outside the metropolitan areas. These are mainly practiced on farms that are facing some threat of the future developments. These farms mostly use the CSA model. Beekeeping Medium to large scale keeping of honey bees mainly for commercial use. End products are only used for sales. The slow food is mainly a global movement started in the year 1986 by Carlo Petrini. It has been mainly treated as the substitute for fast food. It looks to encourage the cultivation of plants and live stocks of the local ecosystems. It was mainly initiated as a part of the broader slow movement. The movement which was started locally has now expanded on global basis. Now the movements are present in more than hundred countries and have over hundred thousand members globally. The main objective of the movement is the promotion of the small agro based local businesses. Here it needs to be mentioned that the slow food movement actually began in Italy. As on 2011 the slow food USA had a member of ship of twenty five thousand members and more than twenty thousand supporters. One of the members happens to be Alice Waters. Slow food USA has two hundred twenty five chapters who are local organizations that hold events and other educational programs to convey the beneficiary message of slow foods. The movement also strongly supports the urban gardening as a part of the urban agriculture. Beyond the organizations or chapters, some universities are also getting recognized by Slow Food USA, such as the University of Wisconsin. That has five projects related to the slow food movement. The idea of growing food in the cities is not a new one. Agriculture has been practiced in urban areas for quite a long time. This has been done sometimes out of necessity and sometimes to provide food security against sudden shortfall of food shortages. The last couple of years have seen an increase in the various aspects related to urban agriculture in USA with the exponential occurrence of various events such as symposia, talks, etc, dedicated towards urban agriculture. Quick review of the media shows that this is being increasingly featured in the mainstream print journalism as well being quite extensively present in the social media platform through the blogosphere. However, the reason for such sudden increase in the attention has become the focus of interest of various researchers and activists. Urban agriculture today is going through a renaissance as it lies in the overlapping area which includes various disciplines such as the sustainability, livability, community engagement, public health, food quality and ecological balance. Urban agriculture mainly represents accessible, tangible opportunities for the city residents of the city. Urban agriculture therefore mainly acts as a catalyst to the initiate changes in the food culture and system. Add to this, urban agriculture therefore mainly functions as a catalyst of consumption which is being viewed as untenable increasingly (Veenhuizen, 2006). Literature review According to various articles published on urban agriculture can build on the existing, and yet neglected or underdeveloped, social relationships of the urban landscape. Urban agriculture in USA has been always enriched by the technologies and skills of the immigrant populations which include the Japanese market gardeners in the city of California and the gardeners of Puerto Rico in New York. Quite often, some of the most vulnerable people in the cities which includes the elderly people, the refugees tend to have years of experience, knowledge about raising and preservation of foods. Urban agriculture is a significant economic activity, which is closely related to the millions of people in the world. There is enough evidence if it is USA and abroad about the fact that the potential contribution of urban agriculture to food security is for real. Now slowly but surely the potential is being fully utilized. The United Nations Development Program forecasts that while fifteen percent of the food round the globe is grown in the cities and there are ample opportunities to improve the percentage. There are various types of urban growers who make major contribution to the food security and raise bulk of the food which is involved in urban agriculture; these include commercial gardeners, backyard gardeners and community gardeners (Schumann, 2011). According to one of the interviews of the Ms. Alice Waters, a famous chef and a proud member of the Slow Food group the most encouraging thing has been the increase in the awareness among the people regarding the importance of eating healthy. The lady was found quoting that people have understood and become aware of the fact that eating can make people go sick. She also added that the movement has gained momentum over the last few years. She said that fast food has become almost hegemonic. Cooking is quite often being perceived as some kind of a hobby. But still it can be insisted that there is a certain amount of momentum that the movement has gained. Increasing number of people have understood both hunger and the obesity for so called fast foods can be reduced by improving the quality of foods and the life of the farmers. This holds true for the people in the city. The impact of urban agriculture on the slow food movement and the overall health of the people as well in maintaining the ecological balance are being acknowledged. With reference to this, the initiative by the city of Chicago towards the launch of transformative urban flaming plan can be mentioned. Rahm Emanuel the mayor of Chicago along with the Chicago based urban agriculture organization Growing power, very recently announced the Farmers of Chicago. It was a program which is likely to transform the vacant southern region of Chicago in to various productive farms. This would help to expand the supply chain of the local neighborhood wholesale and food production. This would also improve the community access to healthy foods (Petrini, 2003). Methodology An ideal methodology provides much required base to the researcher to carry out the whole research with utmost efficiency. An ideal methodology helps the researcher through the study which includes selection of research topic till the drawing of final conclusions. One of the main decisions to for the researchers to make during the process is the selection of the data collection method; to go for primary of secondary. Ideally one should go for primary as well as secondary research. In this case however, it is to be said that whole study has been conducted over a relatively short period of time and hence only secondary data sources have been considered to collect relevant and quality data. Majority of the data are qualitative which has been supplemented by some quantitative secondary data. Hereby it also needs to be mentioned that one of the major limitations of the study would be the fact that the study has been done over a relatively shorter period of time and hence the findings of the study should be treated as indicative only. Findings Due to urbanization the urban areas have surpassed the rural areas. In United States majority (79%) of the people live in urban areas. Majority of the people living in the urban areas of USA suffer of nutrition inequality. Keeping the factor of food security in mind urban agriculture is of extreme importance. People of USA are slowly but surely starting to understand the importance of urban agriculture and its importance to hunger, nutrition and avoidance of obesity for so called fast foods. Even government bodies are taking part in urban agriculture. One of the major examples would be the creation of Famers of Chicago which is directly backed by the Mayor of the city. Overall the increases in the urban agriculture activities have provided the much required fuel to the slow food movement. Conclusions To conclude things it can be said that urban agriculture is of utmost importance keeping in mind the fact that the majority of people living in USA and round the globe are exposed to the problem of nutrition in equality. Urban agriculture is of great significance, not only from food and nutrition point of view but also from an economic and ecological point of view. Keeping the importance of urban agriculture in mind even the regional governments are getting engaged in promoting such activities. Rise of urban agriculture in US have most certainly boosted green food movements like the slow food movements. Due to higher extent of pollution in the urban cities around the world, the urban citizens have started focusing on the urban agriculture. It helps them to get fresh fruits and vegetables from the nearby gardens rather to go to market and buy expensive but not fresh vegetables and fruits. From the above literature review it can be identified that empirical researchers and industry experts also have highlighted on this benefits of urban agriculture in their studies. Therefore, slow food movement run by the urban citizens in different cities is beneficial to both the environment as well health awareness of the urban community. References Mougeot, L. (2006). Growing Better Cities: Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Development. US: IDRC. Nordahl, D. (2009). Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture.US: Island Press. Petrini, C. (2003). Slow Food: The Case for Taste. US: Columbia University Press. Schumann, S. (2011). Urban Farming in Detroit. DE: GRIN Verlag. Tracey, D. (2011). Urban Agriculture: Ideas and Designs for the New Food Revolution. US: New Society Publishers. Veenhuizen. R. (2006). Cities Farming for the Future: Urban Agriculture for Green and Productive Cities. US: IDRC. Read More