Urban Agriculture in NYC: Research Roundup (2024)

FAQs

What is a health benefit of urban farming in New York City? ›

Like other major cities, the urban agriculture sector has the potential to help significantly address health, wealth, food, and climate disparities facing many New Yorkers - particularly through efforts such as entrepreneurship, workforce development, healthy food production, and access.

Results. For the population of City of Los Angeles, urban agriculture can provide between 7% to 111% of the vegetable need at current levels of consumption depending on the growth scenarios. About 35% of the current vegetable need can be met if all available vacant lot area is converted to intensive urban agriculture.

In addition to making it difficult to grow food, the presence of soil contaminants and urban air pollution can also pose health risks to growers if precautions are not taken to reduce exposure (Santo et al., 2016).

New York City is home to more than 700 community gardens, 600 school gardens, and numerous commercial urban agriculture companies.

The communities that have and support urban agriculture can benefit in many ways economically, environmentally and socially. By growing fruits and vegetables in urban areas, it places the food closer to the consumer and helps reduce the transport costs and carbon footprint.

In our current moment, urban agriculture has emerged as a critical component of public health. By providing access to fresh, locally grown produce, urban agriculture can help to reduce the prevalence of diet-related chronic diseases and improve overall health outcomes.

most commonly cited barriers by urban farmers were issues of land access. Of those surveyed, all respondents said that land access is one of the main issues facing would-be urban farmers in Los Angeles.

Additionally, it makes fresh food cheaper, allowing people in low-income areas access to affordable produce. Urban farming can help reduce poverty because when more people have jobs and are able to buy, it fuels the economy, creating even more opportunities.

Additionally, urban farming can help to diversify the types of foods that are grown within a city, which can increase food security by reducing the city's dependence on food imports. Urban farming also has the potential to improve food accessibility for low-income and marginalised communities.

What is one major problem that urban farmers are facing? ›

Urban environments can be more challenging for farming due to factors such as limited space, a lack of soil, and exposure to pollution.

“Urban agriculture practitioners can reduce their climate impacts by cultivating crops that are typically greenhouse-grown or air-freighted, in addition to making changes in site design and management.” Switching crops is not the only way to make urban farming more climate-friendly, the authors found.

New York is a major agricultural state, ranking in the top ten in production of 30 commodities.

Agriculture is a very important industry in New York. Over 30,000 farms on more than 6.5 million acres produce a wide variety of agricultural products, such as milk and other dairy products, beef, apples and more. Farmers also grow a variety of crops in support of the dairy industry, such as corn, oats and wheat.

Milk is New York's leading agricultural product and is produced all across the state. Milk sales account for one- half of total agricultural receipts. Production in 2010 was 12.7 billion pounds with a preliminary value of $2.2 billion.

Cognitive ability, understanding of life cycles, and ability to deal with anxiety have been shown to improve if people have regular interactions with plants and animals. Health benefits include a marked reduction in inflammatory bowel disorders, allergies, atopy, and asthma.

The “urban health advantage” approach is that cities often offer protective health opportunities, such as economic opportunities, development of infrastructure, social support, and access to health care(Galea et al., 2005).

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2021, agriculture in New York produced roughly $3.3 billion in gross domestic product and paid close to $1 billion in wages according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Farming is especially important to the economies of New York's rural areas.

For example, the cooling provided by urban forests can increase resilience to worsening heat waves. Access to trees can also help reduce individuals' stress, improve mental health, strengthen immune systems, reduce crime, and improve student academic performance, among other benefits.