Alison Nihart is the Assistant to the Food Systems Initiative at the University of Vermont

As people continue to seek ways to connect with their food, urban agriculture has been gaining popularity in communities across North America because of the social, economic, and environmental benefits it can offer to individuals and neighborhoods. Urban agriculture can be broadly defined as growing food within a city. The term can embody a range of activities, including home, school, rooftop, and community gardens, urban livestock and poultry, beekeeping, commercial farming, and the use of agricultural structures such as of greenhouses and hoophouses. Some definitions of urban agriculture encompass post-production activities such as processing, distribution, and marketing. Urban agriculture can be commercial, noncommercial, or a hybrid. In terms of scale, urban food production can occur in a space as small as a container on a balcony all the way up to agricultural fields many acres in size. Continue reading...