Metropolitan agriculture is a concept of how to successfully grow food in an urban environment. It studies the linkage between areas such as sustainability, urbanization, urban agriculture, urban land use policies and agricultural change.[1] [2]
Metropolitan agriculture provides a conceptual framework for analysis of all the systems and processes through which agriculture manifests itself in urban areas. This goes beyond primary production to include distribution, processing, marketing and consumption.[3] It can be seen as drawing on urban systems theory to understand the complex ways that agriculture contributes to, shapes, and is shaped by the process of urban development. This requires a spatial lens wider than the immediate urban environment, and the term 'metropolitan' attempts to convey a wider spatial boundary as well as wider conceptual focus.
TransForum is a Dutch foundation that works on sustainable agriculture.[4] It has developed several pilot projects centered on re-connecting agriculture and cities while attempting to develop more sustainable agricultural systems and ventures.[5] Out of this work emerged certain underlying characteristics and design principles as well as a larger conceptual framework for understanding the different ways that agriculture plays a part in urban development.
On a project level, TransForum used 'metropolitan agriculture' to convey an emphasis on systems integration in production processes, lowering external inputs by striving towards closed-loop systems, and multi-functionality in agricultural enterprises.