URBAN AGRICULTURE AS A COMPONENT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: BRAZIL, FRANCE, RUSSIA

Abstract

Urban agriculture is analysed from the point of view of human sustainable development, as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) proposed at the Second United Nation Conference on Human Settlements - Habitat 2 - in June 1996. It is defined as urban activities involving the cultivation of vegetables (food, flowers, and herbal medicines, horticulture, greenhouses) and breeding of some animals (apiculture, aquaculture, breeding of domestic and wild animals for food, skin and fur). The article analyses three cases: Russia, the centre of the former Soviet Union, which developed urban agriculture after the Second World War; France, to illustrate the Western Europe countries where this activity was marginalised, and Brazil, where this development is a consequence of agricultural modernisation, which pushed people into the cities. Surveys as well as a literature review show that urban agriculture has in the past reduced the intensity of food crises and contributed to feeding part of the population in normal periods. It also serves the functions of pleasure and relaxation, therapy, and identity. It helps to transfer cultural heritage and can be used educationally. Developing these functions requires both legislative action to ensure that all categories of the population have long-term access to a plot and joint activity by a number of public and private participants.