Urban greenhouses in The Netherlands to

78 Pages·2017·5.89 MB·English

by  Bos, Erik

Urban greenhouses in The Netherlands
to ‘feed’ the city and its citizens
Food growing in urban greenhouses researched from a social practice perspective

MSc Thesis - Erik Bos
30th of June, 2017
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Erik Bos
Student number: 930820103070
MSc Thesis Environmental Policy Group
Master program: Urban Environmental Management

Supervisor: Gert Spaargaren

June, 2017

Front-page drawing: Marjolijn Zwolsman (2017)
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Summary
Urban greenhouses are more and more applied to grow urban food. This thesis investigated existing urban
greenhouse projects in multiple cities of The Netherlands. The conducted research studied three aspects of urban
greenhouses: the resource use and circularity of the greenhouses, the occurring food growing practices and the
engagement of citizens in these food growing practices. To study the food growing practices, practice theory was
used. The several elements of a practice- like materials, competences and meanings - were studied in the urban
greenhouses. The engagement of citizens was particularly studied by studying the learning process and social
relations of citizens who were engaged in urban greenhouse initiatives. This thesis analysed eight urban
greenhouse initiatives in The Netherlands by doing participative observation in the greenhouses and conducting
semi-structured interviews with expert-participants (coordinators) and citizen-participants in the greenhouses.
The results of the research made clear that urban greenhouses in The Netherlands can be distinguished into
three categories, according to their technologies, resource use and circularity of these resources: 1) high-tech
urban greenhouses, 2) low-tech urban greenhouses and 3) urban greenhouses as part of an outdoor urban farm.
Most of the greenhouses reuse organic waste by making compost and collect rainwater for irrigation. The main
difference between the categories is the use of advanced technologies like automatic irrigation systems and the
automatic regulation of temperature. The urban greenhouses projects often have multiple objectives. Urban
greenhouses produce food, serve as a social meeting place for citizens, teach citizens about food production
and/or make citizens more aware about the food production process. The urban greenhouses involved in this
thesis often achieve multiple functions at the same time.
The food growing practices in urban greenhouses are performed by participants who are using soil, crops and
water to grow food. The greenhouse itself is an important element of the practice as well; A greenhouse creates
an extended growing season, generally causes a higher success rate of the cultivation process and gives the
opportunity to grow exotic crops. The food growing practices in urban greenhouses are done by several
participants: citizen-participants like volunteers, and expert-participants like coordinators and horticulturists. The
participants have multiple reasons to get engaged in the urban greenhouse. For most of the participants, the
end-goal of the food growing practice is to harvest and eat food from the greenhouse. For some of the
participants, performing the practice itself is the end-goal of the practice, even when the production of food fails;
Growing food itself is fun and interesting for them. Citizens are interconnected with the food growing practice by
buying food from the greenhouses. Citizens want to buy and eat fresh, local and biological food. In some of the
greenhouses, citizens also harvest food, which physically connects citizens with their food, which is a meaningful
activity for these citizens.
In most of the greenhouses, food is grown by citizen-participants who are instructed by expert-participants. The
results from the research show that in high-tech greenhouses, the food is only grown by experts because of the
fact that the advanced technologies in the greenhouse demand specific knowledge and skills which are not
possessed by citizen-participants. In low-tech urban greenhouses, the food production process is in hands of
citizen-participants, often supported by an expert or coordinator. There is only one urban greenhouse where
citizens cultivate crops themselves. In that greenhouse, citizens are free to choose how they want to learn the
skill to grow food on their allotment in the greenhouse.
This research discusses that growing food in high-tech urban greenhouses can be regarded as a newly emerged
practice, as it demands specific knowledge, innovative materials and skills to manage and implement these
greenhouses in urban areas. On the contrary, low-tech greenhouses can be regarded as conventional urban
farming as it does not differ substantially from conventional gardening on outdoor urban farms. Furthermore, this
research shows that urban greenhouses are contributing to the needs of the city and its inhabitants in multiple
ways. Greenhouses collect rainwater, reuse organic waste and could use residual heat from buildings.
Additionally, urban greenhouses function as social meeting places, educate citizens about food production and
connects consumers with food production, either physically and/or emotionally. For these reasons, the urban
greenhouse can be seen as an useful instrument to be implemented in the cities of the future.
Key words: Urban greenhouses, circularity, food growing practices, citizen engagement, urban innovation, The
Netherlands
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Acknowledgements
Without the help and hospitality of all the urban greenhouse projects, experts, coordinators and participants, this
research could not have been done. Therefore, I would like to thank all the respondents involved in this research.
They made the field work very pleasant and interesting for me as they were very friendly and open to contribute
to my research. I learned a lot from them about growing food, greenhouse technologies, the social value of
greenhouses and the challenges and opportunities of their projects. It was very interesting to interview all these
different people, for which I am thankful. I would also like to thank my fellow students from the ENP thesis-ring
who helped me to set up and finalise my thesis. Also thanks to Alexander Dank, who particularly gave feedback
about my draft thesis and helped me to improve the text. Lastly, I would like to thank Gert Spaargaren, my
supervisor, for his inspirations and ideas supporting this research.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 7
2. Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................... 9
2.1. Urban nexus approach and urban agriculture ........................................................................... 9
2.2. Practice theory ............................................................................................................. 10
2.3. Citizen engagement in food growing practices ........................................................................ 13
3. Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 16
3.1. Research objectives and theoretical framework ...................................................................... 16
3.2 Research design and methods ........................................................................................... 17
3.3 Selected urban greenhouse initiatives .................................................................................. 20
4. Results ....................................................................................................................................... 21
4.1 General information about urban greenhouse initiatives ............................................................ 21
4.2. Resources and circularity in the urban greenhouses ................................................................. 27
4.3. Food growing practices in urban greenhouses ........................................................................ 32
4.4. Citizen engagement in the food growing practices ................................................................... 44
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 49
6. Discussion.................................................................................................................................. 51
6.1. Urban greenhouse categories and food growing practices .......................................................... 51
6.2. Urban food growing in greenhouses: a newly emerged practice? .................................................. 52
6.3. A future perspective on urban greenhouses ........................................................................... 54
6.4. Limitations of the research ............................................................................................... 55
7. References ................................................................................................................................. 57
8. Appendices ................................................................................................................................ 60

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1. Introduction
The 21st century is often called the ‘urban century’ (Kourtit, Nijkamp, & Geyer, 2015). In this century, the growing
urban population will cause urban challenges related to energy and food supply, waste and water management,
air quality and mobility. John Wilmoth of the United Nations (UN, 2014) stated that ‘managing urban areas has
become one of the most important development challenges of the 21st century’. One of the challenging questions
during this urban century is how to feed growing (mega) cities in the world with sufficient and healthy food? This
question also applies for the cities in The Netherlands. In the coming 15 years, the population of the largest cities
of The Netherlands will grow with 15%, but also medium-sized cities of The Netherlands (like Nijmegen, Den
Bosch and Groningen) will further increase in population size (CBS, 2016a).
In the light of this urbanisation trend and related food challenges, cities are often ‘hotspots’ for transitions
towards alternative food production systems and other innovations (Wolfram, 2016). Initiatives and innovations
are developed in cities through the cluster of knowledge institutions, companies and a local government, the so
called ‘triple helix’ (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1995). Furthermore, inhabitants and neighbourhoods initiate projects
themselves related to food production and energy use. Examples are urban food production projects like
community gardens and urban rooftop farms (Dobernig, Veen, & Oosterveer, 2016). These initiatives contribute
to the development towards a (more) sustainable consumption by the citizens (Jaeger-Erben, Rückert-John, &
Schäfer, 2015).
Besides the development of urban transitions in each sector (waste, water, energy, food), there is a growing
attention to interlink different sectors with each other. This is called the ‘urban nexus approach’ (Beck & Walker,
2013). One of the connections of this urban nexus is the mutual linkages between food production, waste
management and water use. The nexus between food production and energy is less developed (Spaargaren,
Boom, & Rijnaards, 2017). An example of an urban innovation which could be able to connect several sectors
with each other is an urban greenhouse. An example is an existing greenhouse in Naaldwijk, The Netherlands, in
which the surplus of heat from the greenhouse is used to heat households nearby. This symbiosis between food
production and energy use contributes to a more efficiently use of energy (Duurzaam Bedrijfsleven, 2014).
Besides that, urban food production itself decreases the emissions of greenhouse gases emitted by food
transportation as the distance between food production and food consumption reduces. Besides environmental
advantages, urban greenhouses may contribute to create awareness about the food production process. While
the rural greenhouse areas in The Netherlands have a very high productivity and are able to feed the Dutch cities
now and in the future, they are still a ‘separate world’ from the cities and its inhabitants. Consumers do not get in
touch with the producers of food and vice versa (VPRO, 2017). Urban greenhouses could for instance provide the
opportunity for citizens to experience how it is to cultivate crops and to get in touch with ‘their’ food. However,
urban greenhouses are applied on a small scale in The Netherlands and are still in its developing phase. Before
the further development, implementation and construction of urban greenhouses, some features of existing urban
greenhouses should be investigated (Spaargaren et al., 2017). The objective of this research is to investigate the
current application of greenhouses in Dutch cities and to extensively examine the food growing processes in
these greenhouses.
Research objectives and research questions
Besides the production of urban food, the urban greenhouse is an instrument in bringing food production closer
to urban consumers; So in order to establish a link between production and consumption, it is meaningful to
know how citizens are connected to and engaged in current urban greenhouse initiatives. This is done by
researching the performed food growing processes in the greenhouses, so called ‘food growing practices’. The
food growing practices in urban greenhouses include several elements like technologies used for the food
growing process and motivations for participants to get involved in the practice. Especially the engagement of
citizens in the food growing practices is studied to explore how urban greenhouses are interconnected with the
daily life of citizens. This broad perspective on the practices in urban greenhouses is used to know how and to
what extent food growing practices in urban greenhouses fulfil the needs of inhabitants.
This research is performed with three goals: To explore the resource use and circularity of several resources (like
energy, water and waste) in urban greenhouses, to study the food growing practices in urban greenhouses and
to investigate the engagement of citizens in these practices. Therefore, this research observes existing urban
greenhouses in The Netherlands to obtain data and information according to their resource use, occurring food
growing practices and the engagement of citizens in these practices. The main research question of this thesis is:
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How and to what extent are urban greenhouses applied in The Netherlands to grow urban food for
and by citizens?
The main research question is divided in three components, each component consisting of the following sub
questions:
1. Which categories of urban greenhouses can be distinguished according to their resource
use, circularity and technologies?

2. How can food growing practices in urban greenhouses be defined/characterized and how
are they performed?
1.1. Which rules, materials and technologies are involved in the food growing practices in urban
greenhouses?
1.2. Which competences and skills are needed to participate in practices of food growing in urban
greenhouses?
1.3. What are the main drivers – in terms of motivations, emotions and expected outcomes - for
different groups of participants to start participating in the food growing practices in urban
greenhouses?
1.4. With what other (food related) practices are practices of growing food in urban greenhouses
connected?

2. How, in what kinds of ways, and to what extent are citizens involved in the food growing
practices in urban greenhouses?
2.1. How do different groups of citizen-participants come to know and learn about food growing
practices in urban greenhouses?
2.2. Which social relations are connected to the food growing practices in terms of
2.2.1. relationships between and among citizen-participants?
2.2.2. relationships between citizen-participants and expert-participants?
The answers on the research questions could be used for several reasons. Firstly, the results define to what
extent existing urban greenhouses use and reuse resources from the city and explores how greenhouses might
be embedded in the urban waste-, water- and energy streams in the future. Thereby, the differences and
similarities between urban greenhouses regarding the use and reuse of resources are determined, which is useful
to distinguish existing urban greenhouses and to take into account for the further development of greenhouses in
urban spaces. Secondly, this thesis extensively researches the food growing practices in greenhouses and the
several dimension of these practices. Similarities and differences between the urban greenhouses according to
the food growing practices are investigated to indicate how food is actually grown in the urban greenhouses.
Thirdly, the results of this thesis determines the engagement of citizens in the food growing practices in urban
greenhouses and how urban greenhouses play a role in the daily life of citizens. Analysing these three aspects of
urban greenhouses contribute to the further development and implementation of urban greenhouses in urban
areas. The results also define whether the food growing practices in urban greenhouses can be regarded as a
newly emerged practice or not. All in all, this thesis gives an answer on the question how urban greenhouses are
currently implemented in the urban areas of The Netherlands to grow food, either for or by the citizens. For the
research, several theories are used, which are described in the following chapter.

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2. Theoretical Framework
Several theoretical concepts are used to study the three main components of this research (resource use and
circularity of greenhouses, food growing practices and citizen engagement in the practices). Firstly, the urban
nexus approach is explained and the link between urban nexus, urban agriculture and food growing practices is
described. Thereby, some information about the evolvement and a definition of urban agriculture is provided.
Secondly, practice theory is extensively described which is used to analyse the food growing practices in urban
greenhouses. Thirdly, the engagement of citizens in the food growing practices is investigated with a particular
focus on the learning process within the practice and the social relations of citizens within the practice. Therefore,
two theories are used: Legitimate peripheral participation and social relation theory.
2.1. Urban nexus approach and urban agriculture
When looking at the implementation of urban greenhouses in cities, it is needed to investigate how existing urban
greenhouses use and reuse resource flows from the city. Within urban areas, there are many resource flows like
energy, water and waste. These dynamic resource streams within the urban areas are called the ‘urban
metabolism’ of a city. This urban metabolism concept studies and quantifies the in- and outputs of all kinds of
urban resource flows like waste, water, nutrients and energy (Kennedy, Pincetl, & Bunje, 2011). In the light of
this urban metabolism, the urban nexus approach emerged. The urban nexus approach is an emerging theory
how to approach urban challenges in the field of energy, transport, waste and water. The urban nexus is
described as ‘metaphor to investigate mutual dependency of multiple elements in terms of coupled material and
energy flows being interlinked at multiple scales in order to achieve a sustainable city’ (Chen & Lu, 2015). In
other words, this approach stresses that urban innovations should not focus on urban resource flows separately,
but should integrate multiple sectors at the same time to make cities more sustainable and more ‘circular’. This
urban nexus approach is a tool for urban planning and becomes visible in some projects in The Netherlands. For
instance in Utrecht, where electrical vehicles are used to store the surplus of electricity from solar PV panels from
households (Soest van, 2015). That is an example of an innovation where the energy sector is connected with the
transport sector. An example of a nexus between waste and energy can be seen in Amsterdam at the
Westergasfabriek. Organic waste from restaurants is converted into biogas which is transformed into electricity
(Zoelen van, 2016). There are hardly examples of projects where food production is connected with energy flows
in cities. An example of such a nexus exists in a rural area of The Netherlands; A greenhouse exchanges residual
heat to households via an aquifer (Duurzaam Bedrijfsleven, 2014). Such an interconnection between energy and
food could be realised in urban areas as well, for instance by urban greenhouses (Spaargaren et al., 2017). In
this research, the current resource use and the potential use of urban greenhouse to interconnect several
resource flows with food production are explored.
Besides this (potential) interconnection between urban greenhouses and multiple resource flows in the urban
metabolism, urban greenhouses are used to produce food. Therefore, urban greenhouses can be regarded as an
urban agricultural innovation which could be used to combine food production with the use and reuse of multiple
resources from the city. In the light of this, the definition of urban agriculture is defined an shortly explained in
the following paragraph.
Urban agriculture
Urban agriculture is defined as ‘agriculture and its related inputs, processing and marketing activates, occurring
within cities and peri-urban areas around the city (Nugent, 2000; Smit, Nasr, & Ratta, 1996). Urban agriculture
already exists since the existence of cities, for instance in The Netherlands; Citizens cultivated food for own
consumption, close to their houses (Berendsen, 2001). The first use of greenhouses in urban areas to grow good
dates from the 18th and 19th century. In Paris, so called serres (small greenhouses) were used to produce fresh
and exotic food for the wealthy citizens of Paris. In the second half of 20th century, urban agriculture and urban
greenhouses moved away from cities to the rural areas, were highly productive agricultural systems evolved
(Viljoen & Bohn, 2014). The evolvement of such high productive agricultural systems in rural areas also occurred
in The Netherlands; The productivity of the Dutch agricultural sector became very high compared with the global
average (CBS, 2016b). Partly responsible for this high productivity are rural areas with greenhouses for food
production, especially in Het Westland, in the south west of The Netherlands (Voogt & Sonneveld, 1997). But
there is an ongoing trend where food production is returning into the urban areas of the world (Viljoen & Bohn,
2014), which is also the case in The Netherlands ("Stadslandbouw: duurzame groene energie," 2017; Veld,
2015). One of the reasons for this trend is that urban food production contributes to a higher food security for
cities (Mansfield & Mendes, 2013). Additionally, urban food production responses to the growing concerns about
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mass food production and a growing demand for more local produced food (McClintock, 2010). Additionally,
urban farming projects have other advantages: it gives access to healthy food, reduces the distance between
food production and consumption and could have social benefits like an increase in the sense of community, trust
between citizens and the inclusion of poor and disadvantaged people (De Zeeuw, Van Veenhuizen, & Dubbeling,
2011; Grewal & Grewal, 2012; Teig et al., 2009). Urban agriculture may also have an educational function to
teach citizens how food is grown or teach citizens to cultivate crops themselves (Tornaghi, 2014). The rising
inclusion of urban agriculture in The Netherlands is highlighted by the formation of the Dutch City Network on
Urban Agriculture in 2010. This organisation aims to share experiences, projects, knowledge and trends of urban
agriculture in Dutch cities. So, urban agriculture expanded in the Dutch cities during the previous decades.
However, urban agriculture is still ‘a niche innovation and far from being a routine practice’ (Jansma, Veen, Kop,
& Eijk, 2014). Urban greenhouses as urban agricultural initiatives can also be regarded as a niche innovation.
That is one of the reasons why this research studied urban greenhouses; Many features of these urban
greenhouses are still unknown. One of the unexamined aspects of urban greenhouses is the food production
process in urban greenhouses. Food production in urban greenhouses includes certain tasks and actions which
are performed by participants in the process. In this thesis, these food production processes in urban
greenhouses are called ‘food growing practices’. The food growing practices in existing urban greenhouses are
studied by help of practice theory, which is described in the following section.
2.2. Practice theory
This thesis aims to investigate the food growing practices in urban greenhouses and the engagement of citizens
in these practices; In other words, this research explores how citizens perceive urban greenhouses and how and
why citizens are involved in urban greenhouses and the occurring practices. For these objectives, practice theory
is used. Practice theory investigates the ‘context’ of behaviour instead of only personal meanings and choices
(Spaargaren, Weenink, & Lamers, 2016). Practice theory focuses on the actual doing of individuals, including the
materials and artefacts which are co-constituting an activity, but also the motivations for participants (e.g.
citizens) to perform a certain practice. Using practice theory to study food growing practices in urban
greenhouses is therefore useful because it takes into account the whole context of an activity, instead of an
individual perspective on behaviour.
Antecedent theories of practice theory are the theory of attitude behaviour and rational choice theory. The theory
of attitude behaviour focuses on the behaviour and individual choices based on their attitude (beliefs and
intentions). The attitude of individuals is partly influenced by social pressure from other individuals, like other
citizens. Individual attitude and external expectations cause an intention to behave in a certain way (Ajzen, 1991;
Van Koppen & Spaargaren, 2015). One of the theories that criticised the attitude-behaviour theory is rational
choice theory. Rational choice theory states that social behaviour is steered by the ‘benefits’ of a certain
behaviour balanced with the ‘costs’ of certain behaviour; Choices are based on rationality and it underscores the
importance of the structural conditions which facilitate a certain behaviour/decision. When the structural
conditions are optimal, an individual will choose for a behaviour which gives the highest utility outcome (Van
Koppen & Spaargaren, 2015).
However, criticists about the rational choice theory state that this theory puts too much emphasis on the
structural, economical and external factors and does not underline the individual motivations and choices (Van
Koppen & Spaargaren, 2015). Practice theory uses some aspects from rational choice theory and attitude-
behaviour theory (Van Koppen & Spaargaren, 2015). However, practice theory cannot be seen as just a
combination of the attitude-behaviour theory and rational choice theory. The centre of behaviour is, according to
the previous theories, located in the ‘reasoning of individual persons’ (Van Koppen & Spaargaren, 2015). Practice
theory breaks with this dualism that reduces persons to their minds (Lave & Wenger, 1991); Practice theory puts
the centre of behaviour in social practices, which is illustrated by the following quote from Shove & Purling
(2013): ‘Rather than seeing change in the resource intensity of daily life as an outcome of individual choice, or of
seemingly external social and economic forces, it makes sense to ask about how social practices evolve, and what
this means for the use of energy, water and other natural resources’ (Shove & Spurling, 2013). In practice
theory, social practices are the centre of the social behaviour of individuals. But how are social practices defined?
Reckwitz (2002) defined a social practice as:
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