Reports Details

According to the United Nations, 55% of the world's population resides in urban areas today, with projections indicating this will rise to 68% by 2050. In India, more than 31% of the current population lives in urban areas (Census of India, 2011). Rural-to-urban migration and development are leading to rapid urbanisation. With rapid urbanisation, urban areas are expected to have more than 40% of the population living in cities by 2030 (Economic Survey, 2023-2024). This rapid urbanisation underscores significant challenges for sustainable development and intensifies the strain on urban resources and essential services. As cities continue to expand rapidly across India and worldwide, they face multiple and interconnected crises like rising food prices and scarcity, shrinking green cover, declining air quality, water scarcity, and an overall disconnection from land and ecological practices. Also, such climate-related disruptions to rural agriculture are immense and have led to the emergence of urban farming. The popular perception of agriculture is deeply rooted in its traditional association with rural landscapes. For generations, farming has been synonymous with imagery of vast fields, village communities, and the livelihoods of those outside urban centres. This is a very typical and narrow-minded way of looking at agricultural practices. In recent years, urban farming has emerged as a significant area of inquiry and practice across academic, policy, and grassroots platforms. As cities grow and grapple with the intertwined crises of food insecurity, environmental degradation, and socio-economic inequality, urban farming is being explored as a sustainable and locally grounded intervention. Urban agriculture refers to food growing practices in urban and peri-urban areas. It can take many forms, from rooftop gardening, kitchen garden, balcony farming, dockyard farming, community garden, nursery, or growing a wide range of food and non-food products, and includes activities such as rearing livestock, aquaculture, beekeeping, and commercial-scale floriculture. Urban agriculture becomes multi-dimensional by dissecting other functions such as livestock-rearing, pastoralism, fishing, waste production, as well as market-relation, landuse patterns, and socio-ecological functioning in an urban area. This report explores the urban agricultural landscape within the municipal boundary of Bhopal City, with a focus on current statutes of urban agriculture, the types of urban agriculture being practiced, and what kind of challenges and opportunities are faced by urban farmers