Urban agriculture landscapes in 21st century Beirut - by Carine Mitri Lteif

Abstract

The United Nations predicts that by 2030 more than half of the world population will be living in cities. The shift in population is in part the result of high growth rates in cities but also because of the continuous outward flow from villages and the countryside. The prospect of a rapidly urbanizing world invariably raises concerns about food security. In fact, food security was a top of the Millennium Development Goals. Addressing this goal, planners and policy makers are reevaluating the potential for urban agriculture. Cultivation in and around cities is increasingly seen as is an alternative for feeding the urban inhabitants and at the same time providing them with quality green environments. Thirty two percent of Lebanon’s four million inhabitants, 1.3 million, live in Beirut and its suburbs. This research aims to investigate the landscape potential of urban agriculture located at the peripheries of Municipal Beirut and assess its prospective to contribute to urban food security while providing for urban green areas and other benefits like urban water management and environmental protection. The methodology follows three broad lines of inquiry: the first is an archival research, looking back at agricultural activities that characterized Beirut and its peripheries between the 17th and 20th centuries. The second is a review of the literature available on the World urban agricultural practices and on urban agriculture in Lebanon. The third line of inquiry undertakes a field survey in three locations at the edge of municipal Beirut: Shweifat and the coastal and low foothill sections of the Nahr Beirut, respectively the “Metropolitan” hotel area and Daychuniyyeh Valley. Drawing on the experience of urban agriculture elsewhere, a policy framework is adopted to characterize the existing pattern of urban agriculture. Based on the field survey and interviews with agriculture scientists the research identifies the main limitations to urban agriculture in the area of study as resulting from land tenure, water quality, competition with imported crops and chemicals used in production. Future prospects include the current market demand, economic profit and the prevailing awareness among interviewees of the multiple benefits of urban agriculture. Recommendations call first for the adoption of a multi-stakeholder process for the protection and promotion of urban agriculture. Future planning strategies should encourage production on state and Municipality-owned lands, “Wakf” and lands awaiting development. In addition, the study recommends rainwater harvesting to combine food production and environmentally sustainable urban greening.