Utilisation of green urban space for food sufficiency and the realisation of the sustainable development goals – UK stakeholders perspective

Abstract

The exponential growth of food demand due to the increasing global population has the potential to seriously threaten the quality and quantity of food supplies due to climate change. This study explores the utilisation of green urban spaces for achieving food self-sufficiency by investigating the extent to which sustainable urban farms could be used to reduce the consumption of imported produce in the UK. It also examines urban farming stakeholders’ perspective on how food self-sufficiency can help realise the SDGs especially SDG 2 (Zero hunger) and SDG 13 (Climate action). The study adopts a mixed method approach through a survey with 115 respondents and semi-structured interviews conducted with 12 respondents from 4 different urban farming stakeholder groups. The findings of this study presented a strong correlation between stakeholders who had concerns about where their food came from and the carbon footprint of imported produce. The research shows that, urban farms will no doubt play a vital role in the future of food security in our cities/communities and that the SDGs could be realised through sustainable urban farms implemented within the relevant planning regulations/policies.

Keywords

Cities / Food sufficiency / Green urban space / Urban farms / SDGS

Declaration of Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Ethical statement

The research involved human participants (for interviews and surveys) and was approved by the University College London Research Ethics committee prior to any data collection. The study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found in the online version at doi:10.1016/j.geosus.2023.10.001.

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