Emmanuel Mwakiwa

Urban Agriculture: the Socio-economic Factors Emmanuel Mwakiwa

Increasing levels of urban poverty in many Developing Countries resulting from among other things: implementation of Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes and rapid population growth, has contributed to the food insecurity problem for urban households. As a means of coping up with growing economic hardships, the urban population resorted to practise of informal activities like urban agriculture. Urban agriculture remains ?unknown? by city authorities and government. The main objective of this study was to assess the socio-economic factors affecting urban agriculture. Some of the factors that were found to influence urban agriculture practice include: age of household head, household size, and house ownership status. Since urban agriculture is practised mainly by vulnerable groups it is recommended that flexible arrangements should be made to support urban agriculture by city authorities, government, financial institutions and other stakeholders. Given the potential environmental hazards that unchecked urban agriculture could cause, city authorities should actively control urban agriculture activities to ensure that it is practised on appropriate areas and in appropriate ways