What Is Urban Farming? This Is Understanding, Benefits, To Challenges That May Be Faced

Illustration of urban farming (Unsplash)

YOGYAKARTA The concept of urban farming is currently starting to attract a lot of people, especially those living in urban areas. This concept is considered to make it easier for people to manage narrow land for agriculture. So what is urban farming actually?

Language, urban farming means urban agriculture. This means that the urban farming concept is related to agricultural methods in urban areas.

Quoted from the official website of Bangka Belitung Islands Province, urban farming is interpreted as a concept that moves conventional agriculture to urban agriculture. The emergence of urban agriculture is triggered by the many life-related problems in urban areas, which are in the form of reduced agricultural land due to evicted development.

This condition then triggers people who are able to at the same time have knowledge in agriculture to optimize the potential of surrounding resources.

Quoted from the Urban Agriculture Teaching Book written by Dr. Dwiwanti Sulistyowati, M.Si, the understanding of urban agriculture or urban farming is any effort that can be made to utilize empty space or land in urban areas. The space or land can be in the form of yards, sleeping grounds, fences, walls, or in the form of buildings that can be used to produce agricultural products.

There are several benefits of urban farming that will be obtained by the perpetrators, both in terms of social, economic, and environmental. Several examples of urban farming benefits are as follows.

In general, urban farming must meet the basic principles related to land to the use of technology. Some of these principles are as follows.

There are many urban agricultural applications that can be carried out by people in urban areas, namely as follows.

In general, hydroponic is an agricultural method carried out with a water media planting system. In its implementation, the nutrients usually obtained from the soil are replaced with artificial nutrients mixed in water media.

Polybags are black plastics that are devoted to planting media. In the urban farming concept, polybags are used as substitute containers for pots filled with soil, compost and charcoal husks.

Verticulture is an agricultural system that is carried out by placing plants in a vertically aligned manner or can also be graded on empty land, both indoor and outdoor. Usually farmers grow short-lived plants by means of verticulture such as lettuce, celery, mustard, spinach other types of vegetables.

This method is done by planting plants on the roof of the house or it can also be on the top floor for agricultural land. Some people deliberately plant on the rooftop to get benefits such as reducing heat, cooling the surrounding environment, and adding aesthetics to the house.

The public also needs to know what challenges will be faced in urban farming, namely as follows.

That's information related to urban farming. Visit VOI.ID to get other interesting information.