Why farm the city?

17 Pages·2012·0.15 MB·English

CambridgeJournalofRegions,EconomyandSociety2010,3,191–207
doi:10.1093/cjres/rsq005
AdvanceAccesspublication25March2010
Why farm the city? Theorizing urban agriculture through
a lens of metabolic rift
Nathan McClintock
Department of Geography, University of California, 507 McCone Hall, #4740, Berkeley, D
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CA 94720, USA, [email protected] n
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ReceivedonJuly15,2009;acceptedonDecember14,2009 fro
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Urbanagriculture(UA)isspreadingacrossvacantandmarginallandworldwide,embraced ://c
bygovernmentandcivilsocietyassourceoffood,ecosystemsservicesandjobs,particularly jre
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intimesofeconomiccrisis.‘Metabolicrift’isaneffectiveframeworkfordifferentiatingUA’s .o
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multipleoriginsandfunctionsacrosstheGlobalNorthandSouth.IexaminehowUAarises fo
from three interrelated dimensions of metabolic rift—ecological, social and individual. By rdjo
rescalingproduction,reclaimingvacantlandand‘de-alienating’urbandwellersfromtheir urn
food,UAalsoattemptstoovercometheseformsofrift.Consideringallthreedimensionsis als
valuablebothfor theory andpractice. .o
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Keywords:alienation,commodification,thecommons,metabolism,scale,urbanfarming t U
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JELClassifications:Q,R ps
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Introduction mentary school plant a vegetable garden, the first bib
of its kind at the White House in 60 years. The lio
Part of the momentum surrounding food system te
relocalization, urban agriculture (UA) is sprouting Vancouver city council legalizes chicken owner- k o
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upintheemptyspacesofpost-industriallandscapes ship within the city limits. ‘Guerrilla gardeners’ in M
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Londonplantavegetablepatchonaroundabout.In y
throughouttheindustrializedworld—invacantlots, 2
roadmedians,parks—reminiscentofthepatchwork Detroit, goats and chickens graze some of the 60 0, 2
of vegetable gardens and livestock enclosures that square miles of vacant lots left fallow by capital’s 012
are a part of the urban streetscape in much of the flight from thecity.
Global South. The spike in oil and food prices in The renewed interest in UA should come as no
late 2007 and early 2008 and the shocks of the surprise.Historically,urbanfoodproductioninthe
currenteconomicmeltdownhaveledtoatightening US and Britain has flourished in such moments of
of belts and a growing interest in UA as a way to economiccrisis.Aswefindourselvesonceagainin
lowerfoodcosts.Salesofvegetableseedssincethe thethroesofacrisisofcapitalism,thepopularityof
meltdown have increased 20 per cent and news UA in the Global North has surged and the dis-
stories about UA pepper the media at a frenzied course surrounding it has shifted from one of rec-
pace. In Washington, First Lady Michelle Obama reation and leisure to one of urban sustainability
and a handful of fifth-graders from a nearby ele- and economic resilience. Even the terms used to
ÓTheAuthor2010.PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPressonbehalfoftheCambridgePoliticalEconomySociety.Allrightsreserved.
Forpermissions,pleaseemail:[email protected]
McClintock
describeithaveshiftedintheGlobalNorth;‘urban urban geography, agroecology and public health
agriculture’ is replacing ‘community gardening’ in would be helpful not only for agri-food scholars
everyday parlance, placing it (despite its much but also for practitioners wishing to engage
smaller scale) in the same category as UA in with UA.
the Global South, where livestock and small plots Thetheoryofmetabolicriftoffersonesuchlens.
of food crops have persisted as part of the urban Over the last decade, environmental sociologists
landscape. and geographers haveelaborated Marx’s argument
WhilethemotivationsandfunctionsofUAvary that the development of capitalism (and the urban-
greatly across the globe, the widespread discourse ization that followed) alienated humans from the
surroundingUAintheNorthdoeslittletodifferen- natural environment and disrupted our traditional Do
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tiate it from its Southern counterpart. Over the last formsof‘socialmetabolism’,thematerialtransfor- n
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decadeorso,asconcernovertheecologicalimpacts mationofthebiophysicalenvironmentforthepur- ad
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otifmubrrbea,ngizoavtieornnmadenotptsagaennciniecsr,eansionng-lgyovMearnltmhuesnitaanl pFoosseteor,fs1o9c9i9a,lr2e0p0ro0d;uMctoioonre(,C2la0r0k0a;nSdwYyonrgke,d2o0u0w8;, d from
organizations and farmers’ groups have touted the 2006).1 For Marx, labour was the key to under- http
potential for UA to help buffer incomes and food standing this relationship: ‘‘Labour is, first of all, ://c
securityintherapidlyurbanizingSouth(Mougeot, a process between man and nature, a process by jre
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2005; UNDP, 1996; van Veenhuizen, 2006). They whichman,throughhisownactions,mediates,reg- .ox
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extol the virtues of UA’s multifunctionality: it ulatesandcontrolsthemetabolismbetweenhimself rd
improves food security and creates jobs, serves as andnature’’(Marx,1976,283).Understandingthe jou
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asinkforurbanwasteandcoolscities.Thedistance linkages between mid-19th century environmental a
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between production and consumption—so-called crises (such as declining agricultural soil fertility .o
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‘food miles’—decreases, lowering fossil fuel use andrisinglevelsofurbanpollution)andthesqualor a/
and transportation costs. In the North, advocates oftheworkerthereforenecessitatedanunderstand- t U
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echo this discourse, also adding UA’s ability to ing of the processes that disrupted (or created s
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strengthen a sense of community, reconnect con- a‘rift’)inpre-capitalistformsofsocialmetabolism. la U
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sumers with farmers, raise awareness of environ- Marxascribedthisrifttotheexpansionofcapitalist iv
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mental and human health and keep money modes of production (the rise of wage labour, in rs
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circulating locally. Ecological farming practices particular) and to urbanization arising from indus- ts
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reduce the amountof agri-chemicals used, curbing trialization and the displacement of small-scale ib
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environmental pollution and threats to public agriculture: te
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health. In short, advocates argue that UA creates o
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amoreecologicallysound,resilientandproductive Large landed property reduces the agricultural M
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landscape(UNDP, 1996; Viljoen, 2005). population to an ever decreasing minimum and 2
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AnundifferentiatedviewofUAanditspossibil- confrontsitwithanevergrowingindustrialpop- , 2
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ities, however, may result in its prescription as ulation crammed together in large towns; in this 12
a panacea for urban ills without consideration for wayitproducesconditionsthatprovokeanirrep-
the geographic particularities of a particular city. arableriftintheinterdependentprocessofsocial
Can we generalize about why people farm in the metabolism,ametabolismprescribedbythenat-
city? And more importantly, can we make broad ural laws of life itself. The result of this is
claimsaboutwhypeopleshouldfarmurbanspaces? a squandering of the vitality of the soil, which
To better understand the dynamics giving rise to is carried by trade far beyond the bounds of
UAinvarioussettingsinboththeNorthandSouth, a single country. (Marx,1981,949)
as well as the ways in which UA has developed
as a multifunctional response to these dynamics, a Asheexplains,thisprocessalsocleavesabiophys-
theoretical framework bridging political economy, icalriftinnaturalsystems(suchasnutrientcycles),
192
Theorizing urban agriculture
leadingtoresourcedegradationatpointsofproduc- rate processes, these three unified dimensions of
tionandpollutionatpointsofconsumption.Finally, metabolic rift are co-producedbutcan be differen-
this rift reifies a false dichotomy between city and tiatedasafunctionofboththescaleatwhichmet-
country, urban and rural, humans and nature, ob- abolic rift occurs and by the grain and extent of
scuringand effacingthe linkages between them. observation. I should stress here that my intention
Many environmental sociologists have used the isnottotossoutnewtermsandconceptssimplyfor
theoryofmetabolicrifttoexplainshiftsinnutrient thesakeofaddingtoanalreadysaturatedlexiconof
cycling under capitalist agriculture as Marx did Marxianpoliticaleconomy.Rather,Ihopetobridge
(Clark and York, 2008; Foster, 1999, 2000; Foster and clarify existing concepts and incorporate them
and Magdoff, 2000), as well as the ways that sus- into a single framework that accords equal weight Do
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tainableagriculturemighthelptoovercomethisrift to ecological and social aspects. As such, a theory n
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(Clausen, 2007; Clow and McLaughlin, 2007; of metabolic rift emphasizing its multiple dimen- ad
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FthoestsecroapnedoMf aangadlyosffi,s2to00in0c).luOdtehebrrsoahdaevreeecxoploangdiceadl seixopnlsainmhayistboericuasleadndmcoorentpemrepciosrealryyttoraannsfaolyrmseataionnd d from
crises: global warming (Clark and York, 2005; of theagri-foodsystem. http
York et al., 2003), fisheries depletion (Clausen My second goal in this paper is to use this ex- ://c
andClark,2005)andtheecologicalsuccessionaris- pandedviewofmetabolicriftbothtoshedlighton jre
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ing from the development of global capitalism the different dynamics driving the emergence of .ox
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(Moore, 2000; Prew, 2003). Despite Marx’s con- UA in various parts of the world and to show rd
ception of social metabolism as a fundamentally how UA attempts to overcome these three forms jou
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socio-ecological process, however, most scholar- of metabolic rift. With added emphasis on social a
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ship on metabolic rift has emphasized the ecologi- riftsinmetabolismoperatingatmultiplescales,this .o
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caldimensionsofcrisesofcapitalistaccumulation. expanded framework can help us understand both a/
If, as Marxian geographers and political ecolo- social and ecological dimensions of UA’s multi- t U
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gists have argued, understanding ‘socio-natures’ functionality,fromitsattemptstoovercomedisrup- s
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(such as cities, agricultural landscapes or other tions in ecological cycles to its ability to reclaim la U
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areas of resource extraction) is contingent upon public space, re-embed food production and con- iv
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uncovering the ways in which social and natural sumption with socio-cultural significance and rs
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processes are co-produced through social metabo- reconnect consumers with their food and the envi- ts
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lism (Harvey, 2006; Smith, 2008; Swyngedouw, ronment.2UnderstandingUAinthiswaymaybeof ib
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2006), then understanding UA’s contingency on service not only to academics but also to policy te
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historical processes is a necessary first step in the- makers,planners,non-profitworkersandUAadvo- o
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orizing its multiple geographies. The purpose of catesastheyframediscussionsofUAanddevelop M
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this paper is therefore two-fold. First, I contribute futurepolicy andprogrammes. 2
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to the existing conceptualization of metabolic rift , 2
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by more explicitly emphasizing its social dimen- 12
Ecological rift: rescaling metabolism
sions. I discuss three interdependent yet distinct
formsordimensionsofmetabolicrift:(i)ecological Theformofmetabolicriftmostdiscussedbyschol-
rift,whichincludesboththeriftinaparticularbio- arsiswhatIrefertomorespecificallyasecological
physical metabolic relationship (such as nutrient rift. According to their arguments, the imperative
cycling) and the spatio-temporal rescaling of pro- of spatial expansion inherent to capitalism has
duction that follows in its wake; (ii) social rift, cleaved a rift between city and country, humans
arising from the commodification of land, labour and nature. In search of new spaces for ongoing
and food at various scales and (iii) individual rift, accumulation,capitalhasalsodisruptedsustainable
thealienation of humans from natureand from the biophysical relationships such as nutrient cycles.
productsofourlabour.Ratherthanatriadofsepa- As Moore (2000, 137) argues, ‘‘systemic cycles
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McClintock
ofagroecologicaltransformation’’triggeredbynew production not only severed particular metabolic
modes of capitalist production ‘‘usher in a new interactions such as on-farm cycling of nutrients
more intrusive and more globalized exploitation between soil, crops, livestock, manure and human
ofnaturebycapital’’.Capital’songoingexpansion waste but also rescaled social metabolism, both
therefore creates a cycle of ‘rifts and shifts’ spatially andtemporally.
whereby attempts to address a metabolic rift in Sustaining social metabolism under a food pro-
oneplacesimplyleadto‘geographicdisplacement’ ductionsystemthatdepletesratherthanregenerates
of ecological crisis (Clark and York, 2008). In an theresourcebasedependsonbothspatialandtem-
often-citedexample,theexpansionofcapitalistag- poralrescalingandincreasinglyreliesonwhatecol-
ricultureinEuropeandNorthAmericaledtoasoil ogistsrefertoasspatialandtemporal‘subsidies’to Do
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fertility crisisduringthe19thcentury.Amaddash thefoodweb(Polisetal.,2004).Whenevermetab- n
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for new sources of fertility ensued (notably for olism is rescaled to incorporate a new subsidy, ad
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SaonuatshcenAtmsyenritchaenticgfueartniolizearndindsuaslttprye.teTrh)easlcornagmsbidlee asibnleewtoeccololosgeitchaelrloifotpisbcertewaeteednbtheecasuosuerciteisanimdpsionsk- d from
to locate new sources of fertility drove imperialist ofthesubsidy.Duringtheaforementionedcrisisin http
expansionism that ultimately displaced the meta- soilfertility,guanoandnitratesimportedfromPeru ://c
bolicriftelsewhere(ClarkandYork,2008;Foster, andChilewereminedfromdecades-andcenturies- jre
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1999; Foster and Magdoff, 2000). As Engels old deposits (Clark and York, 2008; Foster and .ox
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explained inthelate 19thcentury,eachtechnolog- Magdoff, 2000). If, as Huber (2009, 108) argues, rd
icaltriumphovernatureleadstoothercrises:‘‘For fossilfueluseis‘‘aninternalandnecessarybasisto jou
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each such victory takes its revenge on us. Each the capitalist mode of production’’, such spatio- a
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victory, it is true, in the first place brings about temporal rescaling of social metabolism is also in- .o
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theresultsweexpected,butinthesecondandthird ternal and integral to the contemporary agri-food a/
places it has quite different, unforeseen effects system. The natural gas and petroleum needed to t U
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which only too often cancel the first’’ (Engels, produce synthetic fertilizer and power tractors, for s
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1959,12).Theseshort-termtechnologicalfixesin- example, is millions of years-old, drawn from gas la U
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evitablygeneratenewmetabolicrifts,amountingto fieldsandoilwellsaroundtheglobeandshippedto iv
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a ‘‘a shell game with the environmental problems factoriesandrefineriesbeforebeingusedthousands rs
[capitalism] generates, moving them around rather of miles from the point of extraction.3 It soon itets
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than addressing the root causes’’ (Clark and York, becomes easy to see how ecological rift scales up, ib
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2008, 14). making social metabolism a global affair, depen- te
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However, this shell game is not just a matter of dent on millions-year-old subsidies from tens of o
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space but also a matter of scale. While a rift in thousandsof miles away. M
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aparticularmetabolicprocessoccursataparticular Rescalingthesenutrientcyclesandreducingde- 2
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scale, social metabolism of nature continues at pendenceonpetroleum-basedfoodproductionlieat , 2
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new spatial and temporal scales as production is the heart of UA’s potential to mitigate metabolic 12
relocated or becomes dependent on new inputs. rift. British agronomist Sir Albert Howard (1943),
Capitalist rationalization of agriculture (farm con- concerned that organic wastes (human, animal and
solidation, separation of crops and livestock, the cropresidues)wererarelycycledbacktotheirpoint
advent of imported and synthetic fertilizers) arose oforigininlarge-scaleagriculture,plaintivelypon-
fromthepursuitofnewmarketsandfromtheneed dered, ‘‘Can anything be done at this late hour by
toavertcrisesofproduction,suchasfallingratesof way of reform? Can Mother Nature secure even
profitduetocompetition,adeclineinavailabilityof a partial restitution of her manurial rights?’’ (40).
raw materials or environmental pollution and de- WhileunclearifhewasawareofMarx’s viewson
clining worker health resulting from production social metabolism (and if so, it is doubtful that as
practices (cf Moore 2000, 2008). These shifts in a servant of the British crown he would have
194
Theorizing urban agriculture
admittedasmuch!),Howardechoedtheconcernsof peri-urbanlivestockproduction,ashandcomposted
Liebig,MarxandEngels.Notingthat‘‘theChinese garbageasafreeorlow-costfertilizerandsoilcon-
havemaintainedsoilfertility onsmallholdingsfor ditioner.Peri-urbanlivestockproducers,inaddition
forty centuries’’ and inspired by the traditional totappingrisingurbandemandformeat,dairyand
farming practices he witnessed around him in the eggs,sellmanuretourbanmarketgardenersandto
colonies, Howard championed compost use over large-scale vegetable farms in the urban outskirts.
chemical fertilizers and pondered a possible trans- Toprofitfromcompost’sfertilizingpotential,farm-
formation of the industrial model where waste ers frequently cultivate the peripheries of garbage
wouldbecycledbacktofarmland.Howard’snotion dumps or establish illicit contracts with garbage
dovetailed with what Engels envisioned in1878: truck or cart drivers to obtain compost for their Do
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fields, paying them to simply dump a load of gar- n
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[A]bolition of the antithesis between town and bageintheirfieldswhileenroutetocentralcollec- ad
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caoduinretrcyt nisecneosstitmyeorfeliyndpuosstrsiiabllep.roItduhcatsiobneictosemlfe, toirognanfaiccilfirtaiecst.ioAndvoofcwataessteargstureeatmhast troedairgercitciunlgtutrhael d from
just as it has become a necessity of agricultural productioninurbanareasandtheirhinterlandswill http
production and, besides, of public health. The helptoboostsoilfertility,aswellasreducesoiland ://c
present poisoning of the air, water and land can water pollution arising from heavy agrochemical jre
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be putan end to only by the fusion of town and use and large concentrations of waste deposited in .ox
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country; and only such fusion will change the landfills, dumps and waterways (Dreschel and rd
situation of the masses now languishing in the Kunze, 2001; UNDP, 1996). jou
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towns,andenabletheirexcrementtobeusedfor Yettotrulyclosethenutrientcycleanddiminish a
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the production of plants instead of for the pro- the impacts of this ecological rift, human waste .o
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ductionofdisease.(MarxandEngels,1978,723) from urban consumers would need to be returned a/
tothecrops’fieldsoforigin.Everyday,onaverage, t U
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Inthissametradition,mendingecologicalriftvia every human produces 1 to 1½ kg of nutrient-rich s
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the recycling of organic waste is central to UA feces. Human waste, or ‘night soil’, is a common la U
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acrosstheglobe.Thisconceptofreturningnutrients source of organic fertilizer in UA and peri-UA, iv
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to agricultural soils in the form of urban waste is though less commonly promoted (much less dis- rs
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vital to overcoming the ‘antithesis between town cussed)dueculturalbiasesandtothehigherpublic ts
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and country’ and is fundamental to a ‘restitutive’ healthrisksassociatedwithitsapplication.Despite ib
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agriculture. While few urban planners and main- thesocialstigma,foulodorandcontaminationrisk te
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stream development practitioners likely look to- related to its use, there is stiff competition among o
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wards Marx and Engels for inspiration, these farmers for access to night soil. In one study, two- M
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obscure passages describing metabolic rift are par- thirdsoffarmers surveyed intwoperi-urban zones 2
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ticularly prescient, relevant not only to the devel- innorthernGhanausedhumanwasteintheirfields , 2
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opmentofsustainableagriculturebutalsotourban (Cofie et al., 2005). In China, in particular, appli- 12
wastemanagementandtheimpendingenvironmen- cationofhumanwastetofarmlandhasbeencentral
tal crises of mega-urbanization (cf Davis, 2006, to both urban waste management and agricultural
121–50). production but has been diminishing as rapid in-
For millennia, farmers worldwide have main- dustrialization and urbanization transform agricul-
tainedsoilfertilityonsmallplotsthroughtheappli- tural productionat theurban edge (UNDP,1996).
cation of organic waste; urban farmers are no IntheGlobalSouth,suchformsofrestitutivesoil
exception. Adapting to the rising cost of chemical fertility management generally arise from creative
fertilizers and stagnant market prices for their pro- exploitation of limited resources and adaptation to
duce,urbanfarmersinmanypartsoftheSouthrely limitedaccesstoland,fertilizerandcredit.Framed
onintensiveapplicationsofmanurefromurbanand as a sustainable way to reduce urban ecological
195
McClintock
footprints, such age-old nutrient cycling practices andcapital,theutilityofmetabolicriftasatheoret-
(excepting night soil application) are now a cor- icalframeworkthroughwhichtoviewtheagri-food
nerstone of UA advocacy worldwide. In North system stands to gain from added emphasis on
America and Europe, an ethos of agricultural sus- what I call ‘social rift’. Two historically interre-
tainability generally informs UA practice. Many lated processes—theorized by Marx as primitive
urbangardenersandmostUAprojectsuseecolog- accumulation—are central to social rift: the com-
icalmethodsthatattempttoclosethenutrientcycle, modification of land and the commodification of
such as compost application, planting of nitrogen- labour. The clearing and/or dispossession of sub-
fixing cover crops and incorporation of crop resi- sistencefarmersandherdersfromcommonlandhas
dues. Application of compost to urban soils can resulted in the proletarianization of rural popula- Do
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also provide other environmental services, such as tions who flood into urban centres in search of n
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reducing erosion, improving drainage and water work: ‘‘the systematic theft of communal property ad
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hboillidziinngg hcaepavacyitmy,ectaolns.trFololirncgopmamtheorgceianlagnrodwimerms oin- wcualstuoraflgpreoaptualasstiiostnanacsea.proinle‘taseritatitnfgorfrtehee’ntheeedasgroi-f d from
peri-urban areas, a growing consumer demand for industry’’ (Marx, 1976, 886).4 http
local and organic food often drives the transition Understandingthissocialriftisnotonlyessential ://c
to more ecologically sound farming practices. to explaining urbanization but also to elucidating jre
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A growing number of municipalities collect green thelinkagesbetweenurbanizationandtheagri-food .ox
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waste (a combination of yard trimmings and food system.Theriseoflarge-andindustrial-scalefarm- rd
scraps) for composting. Much of the compost is ing has entailed the consolidation of land and ex- jou
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sold at low cost or provided for free to local farm- pansion of mechanization and other new farming a
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ers, landscapers andgardeners. technologies, both of which reduce the demand .o
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Infrastructureforthecollection,compostingand foragriculturallabour.ThiswasevidentinEurope a/
distribution of compost seems to be the greatest atthedawnofthecapitalistera,intheUSAduring t U
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hurdlepreventingUA’sabilitytominimizeecolog- thelatterhalfofthe20thcentury(Cochrane,1993; s
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ical rift in nutrient cycling. Nevertheless, develop- MazoyerandRoudart,2006),andmorerecentlyin la U
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ment workers and planners are optimistic about its China where as many as 70 million farmers were iv
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role and argue that with improved waste manage- dispossessedbyexpandinglandmarketsinthelast rs
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ment technology, access to land and policies decadeofthe20thcentury(Harvey,2005,146–7). ts
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favouring agricultural production in urban areas, IntheGlobalSouth,ahostofpressures—structural ib
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UA can contribute significantly to feeding the adjustment programmes, land consolidation, te
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world’scitiesandmendingecologicalriftbyrestor- drought,war,expansionofnaturalresourceextrac- o
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ing‘Nature’smanurialrights’,rescalingproduction tion and biofuels plantations—has dispossessed M
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toamorelocallevelandrelyinglessonspatialand rural populations over the last several decades and 2
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temporal subsidies. fuelled the growth of megacities and their slums , 2
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across the globe (Davis, 2006). Indeed, as Marx 12
(1976) predicted, ‘‘Part of the agricultural popula-
Social rift: commodification
tion is therefore constantly on the point of passing
Drawing on Marx’s analysis of soil fertility deple- over into an urban or manufacturing proletariat’’
tion, most scholars have emphasized ecological (795).
dimensions of metabolic rift. According to Marx’s SocialriftisacentraldriverofUAintheGlobal
conceptionofsocialmetabolism,however,ecolog- South, where production of food is often a subsis-
ical rifts develop in conjunction with social pro- tenceactivity.Between70and75percentoffarmers
cesses, notably the rise of wage labour. If, as inasurveyofUAinNairobi,forexample,produced
Marx argued, understanding these rifts depends for household consumption, citing hunger and the
onunderstandingthelinkagesbetweenwagelabour need for food as their principal motivation (Ali
196
Theorizing urban agriculture
MemonandLee-Smith,1993;Freeman,1991).Sim- explains, ‘‘Whatever a woman earns [from her
ilar rates have been found in other parts of Africa, gardens] goes directly into the cooking pot’’
with lower rates in Asia and Latin America (McClintock,2004).
(Egziabher et al., 1994; Mougeot, 2005; van Veen- A straightforward Marxian analysis of the com-
huizen,2006).Ruralmigrantsoften discoveronar- binedimpactoflowwagesanddispossessionfrom
rivalinurbancentresthatprospectsforemployment the land can largely explain the rise of UA and its
areslim.Manymustthereforeimprovisenewmeans continued presence in the Global South. Indeed,
of survival, particularly in those cities where social primitive accumulation is ongoing as Southern
serviceswereguttedunderstructuraladjustmentdur- countriesintegratemorefullyintotheglobalecon-
ing the 1980s and 1990s. Many embark on small- omyandcommunallymanagedproperty‘enclosed’ Do
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scaleagricultureonmarginalplotsoflandtuckedin bytitlingarrangementsandemerginglandmarkets. n
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betweenhousing,industryandinfrastructure,within In the North, however, such processes happened ad
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tthoebcuitfyfeirtstehlfemorsienlvietssimfrommedtihaeteshoincitoer-leacnodnso,minicorudper- loonngtheer wagoor;kiotfiPsotlhaenryeifo(2re00h1e)lpinfulortdoerdtroawunadlesro- d from
heaval of dispossession from their land and from standhowsocialrifthasproducedUAintheNorth. http
the lack of formal employment opportunities in the Polanyi describes in detail how land, labour and ://c
city and its peripheral slums.5 The slashing of gov- money are bought and sold as ‘fictitious commod- jre
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ernment jobs under structural adjustment in many ities’, fictitious because they were not produced .ox
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parts of the Global South also drove members of to be sold as a commodity. Under the expansion rd
the urban professionalclass toembarkonUAproj- of laissez faire economic liberalism, they are in- jou
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ects toaugment their diets,and for those selling on creasingly subject to the whims of the free market a
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informallocalmarkets,tosupplementtheirincome. (Polanyi, 2000, 60). In times of economic crisis, .o
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According to Guyer (1987), subsistence and whenthemarketvalueofthefictitiouscommodities a/
small-scale urban food production, along with the fluctuates dramatically, an ‘avalanche of social t U
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informal food economy to which it contributes, dislocation’ tends to follow (Polanyi, 2000, 42). s
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oftenunderminetheexpansionofmoreformalmar- Polanyi argues that without a moral economy of la U
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kets. At the same time, however, self-provisioning mutualaidintimesofneed,theuncheckedbuying iv
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effectively subsidizes the cost of social reproduc- and selling of these fictitious commodities risks rs
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tion within the larger capitalist economy (Arrighi, unleashing socialupheaval: ts
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2008; Berry, 1993; Hart, 2002; Wolpe, 1972); in ib
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short, wages can stay lower if workers are feeding Robbed of the protective covering of cultural te
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themselves,ultimatelyfacilitatingtheaccumulation institutions, human beings would perish from o
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ofcapital.6UAthereforeexistsintensionwithcap- the effects of social exposure .. Nature would M
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ital, arising as a strategic response to social rift be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and 2
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on one level by exploiting underutilized land and landscapes defiled, rivers polluted . the power , 2
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buttressing against the expansion of commercial to produce food and raw materials destroyed. 12
agri-food markets in poor areas, while subsidizing (Polanyi,2000, 76)
ongoingaccumulationonamoremacro-level.Such
coping mechanisms generally shift an additional Wages left to laissez faire or free market logic de-
burdenontotheshouldersofurbanwomen,inpar- clineassurpluslabourentersthemarket(aprocess
ticular (Hovorka et al., 2009; Meillassoux, 1983). that, as we have seen, is fueled by the ongoing
In addition to expending her energy on food pro- primitive accumulation), depressing wages that
ductionandjobsintheinformaleconomy,afemale lowers work and living standards (Marx, 1976;
farmermayalsodivertincomeearnedfromsaleof Harvey, 2007). Land—and by extension natural
surplusproducetowardsthepurchaseofadditional resources—valued only as a production input or
ingredientsforameal;asaSenegaleseextensionist commodity for exchange can be over-exploited
197
McClintock
for short-term gain with little consideration of its eachon455acres(184ha).Gardenswereintended
long-termproductivity.Insum,‘‘leavingthefateof not only to provide food and employment but also
soilandpeopletothemarketwouldbetantamount to create self-respect and to help assimilate recent
to annihilating them’’ (Polanyi, 2001, 137). To immigrants. During the Great Depression, UA
protect people from extreme social dislocation, a againprovidedfoodandjobsforthemassesofun-
‘protective counter-movement’ inevitably arises employed. The New Deal Federal Emergency
(Polanyi, 2001, 71–80) that ranges in form from ReliefAdministrationspent$3billiononreliefgar-
communal networks of support to government densbetween1933and1935alone.Onegardening
interventionandregulation. programme in New York City transformed 5000
With the rise of rapid urbanization during the vacant lots into highly profitable gardens by 1934 Do
w
industrial era, UA repeatedly arose as part of (Brown andJameton,2000; Lawson, 2005). n
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acounter-movementtoprotectthepopulationfrom Garden programmes also exploded during war- ad
e
tfhateesoofcsiaolildainsldocpaetoiopnlerteosuthlteinmgafrrkoemt’’.‘‘Sleuabvsiinsgtenthcee tiinmget.hLeiWbeortryldgaWrdaernIsapsroaligfeorvaeterndminentthereUspSoAnsdeutro- d from
foodproductionwaspart oftheAmericanand Eu- the food riots gripping the nation. Under the guid- http
ropeanurbanlandscapeswellintothe20thcentury. ance of the National War Garden Commission, ://c
As urban areas developed during industrialization, ‘idle’ land was cultivated by more than 5 million jre
s
UAoften served asacoping strategy, significantly gardeners.DuringWorldWarII,undertheNational .ox
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subsidizingthesocialreproductionofworkersasin Victory Garden Program, 20 million gardens pro- rd
the South. In Britain, the Commons Act 1876 and duced40percentofAmerica’svegetablesby1944. jou
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various Allotment Acts (1832, 1887, 1908, 1922, During the economic recession of the 1970s, a
ls
1925 and 1950) obliged ocal governments to pro- ‘inflation gardens’ flourished in America’s inner .o
rg
vide citizens with space for food production citieswithaboostfromtheback-to-the-landideals a/
(CrouchandWard,1988).IntheUSA,subsistence of the environmental movement and the USDA’s t U
p
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production was actively practised and encouraged $1.5 million Urban Gardening Program. During s
a
wellinto20thcenturyinurbancentressuchasLos thisperiod,communitygardenersandactiviststook la U
n
Angeles,wherechickens,pigs,beansandtomatoes over thousands of vacant lots in US cities that had iv
e
were common sights in the small yards of worker becomefallowintheebbofindustrialandresiden- rs
ite
housing(Nicolaides,2001).Communitygardensin tial capital (Brown and Jameton, 2000; Lawson, ts
b
the USA and allotment gardens in the UK grew 2005; Schmelzkopf, 1995). ib
lio
in number during times of economic hardship and This same notion of local food production as te
k
austerity.However,thegrowthofUAduringthese asafetynetforcitydwellersdrivesmanyoftoday’s o
n
crises periods was often orchestrated by govern- initiatives. Leon Davis, a community activist in M
a
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mentsasapartofacoordinatedprotectivemeasure. Oakland,California,explains: 2
0
Urbanfoodproductionservednotonlytobufferfor , 2
0
food security but also to quell potential unrest Food is the key, food is the gold. Even when 12
(Moore, 2006). As America industrialized in the people get kicked out of their apartments and
late 19th century, a growing pool of unemployed they’re out there homeless on the street, they’re
gathered in urban areas. Municipal governments stillgoingtohavetoacquirefood.Forpeopleout
providedgardenplotsandseedstostaveoffhunger onthestreets,howcantheygetfedforthatday?
and unrest. During the Depression of 1893, the ‘‘When my stomach get growling, man, and
mayorofDetroitlaunchedaso-calledPotatoPatch Idon’thavenomoneyinmypocket,I’llgosteal
plan—later adopted across the USA—to provide something out the store,’’ you see? So if you
the unemployed with vacant lots between ¼ and 1 don’t establish a network with food as a basis,
acre each. More than 1500 families farmed small you’regoingtohavemorethieving,morepeople
vacant lots between an eighth- to a half-hectare aregoingbestealingfromstores,robbingpeople
198
Theorizing urban agriculture
because they don’t have no money, so they can scure the subsistence role that UA has always
buyfood.Notsotheycanbuydrugs,butsothey played in urban landscapes, as well as to devalue
can buy a sandwich. People robbing each other UA in times of prosperity (Moore, 2006). Indeed,
sotheycanbuyasandwich.Sofoodproduction whentheeconomyimprovesandadjacentlandval-
needs to ramp up. More local farms, not just in uesrise,UAisnolongerseenasapublicgoodbut
theoutlyingareas,butrighthereinthecity,peo- anobstacletodevelopment.InNewYork’sLower
ple growing, knowing how to grow. (Interview EastSideduringthe1970s,forexample,municipal
with the author, 16 March 2009, Oakland, government promoted community gardens as ‘‘a
California) productive use of land considered to be relatively
useless’’. Thegentrificationofnearby SoHo inthe Do
w
AsDavisarguesinthequoteabove,localfoodpro- 1980s, however, led to rising land values and n
lo
duction is central to a local food system that is a growing interest in development and eventually ad
e
aocffcepsrseibcilseetloy athlleasnodrtisofnescoecsisaalrydisinloocardtieorntoarsistainvge taondatmheorbautlolrdiouzminogfolfeasesivnegravlascqaunatttlearngdafrodrengsa.rTdeenns- d from
from economic crisis that Polanyi warned of. sionsalsoarosewithinthecommunityoverwhether http
The Obama administration is on the same page to use vacant lots as space for gardens or for low- ://c
and has launched a Keynesian protective counter- income housing (Schmelzkopf, 1995). These ten- jre
s
movement vaguely reminiscent of the Franklin sions between development and UA are often .ox
fo
Roosevelt’s New Deal to stave off the social racialized, as in the case of South Central Farms. rd
upheaval due to widespread unemployment. Evi- The14-acrefarmwasoriginallyestablishedin1993 jou
rn
dently, the US government is once again onboard by the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank in an ef- a
ls
in the promotion UA as a means of guaranteeing fort to bring healthy food to the impoverished .o
rg
food security for the urban poor. Following the neighbourhood.Inanow-famouscase,thegardens a/
precedent set by the First Lady’s South Lawn gar- (which provided food for more than 350 families) t U
p
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den, the Corporation for National and Community werebulldozedin2006followingalonglegaland s
a
Service, the public–private partnership housing political battle between activists, city council and la U
n
AmeriCorps and other government-sponsored do- the land owner (Barraclough, 2009; Iraza´bal and iv
e
mestic volunteer programmes, published an online Punja, 2009).8 rs
ite
‘toolkit’onhowtoestablishacommunitygardenas UA’srelationtosocialriftdoesnotliewithland ts
b
a means to ‘expand access to healthy local food’. alone.Ifweconsiderfoodasafictitiouscommodity ib
lio
The documentexplains: likeland,UA’sabilitytomendsocialriftbecomes te
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evenclearer.Food,whileproducedasacommodity o
n
Communitygardensprovideaccesstotraditional inthecapitalistagri-foodsystem,functionsinasim- M
a
y
produceornutritionallyrichfoodsthatmayoth- ilar manner to Polanyi’s other fictitious commodi- 2
0
erwise be unavailable to low-income families ties. Its treatment as a simple commodity to be , 2
0
and individuals .. Community gardens allow bought and sold according to market logic effaces 12
families and individuals, without land of their thecomplexweaveofrelationsrunningthroughits
own, the opportunity to produce food. Often- production,distribution,preparationandconsump-
times gardeners take advantage of the experien- tion.Therapidtransformationoftheagri-foodsys-
tialknowledgeofelderstoproduceasignificant tem during the 20th century was due in large part
amountof foodfor thehousehold.7 to the expanded commodification of food, from
patented seeds to artificial ingredients and fast
Thediscourseofcrisisdrivingtheseprogrammes food restaurants. As food has become increasingly
was used not only to justify UA but also to deni- processed and packaged, the culture and traditions
grateitasanactofwelfareforthepooroncecrises surrounding food production and consumption
hadpassed.Assuch,crisisdiscoursehelpedtoob- havegraduallybeenobscuredbythemarket-based
199
McClintock
ideology of cheap food (Levenstein, 2003; together these tiny tesserae into a fertile mosaic in
Schlosser, 2005). both places, where gardens grown along the aban-
The socio-cultural significance of food and ag- donedrailroadrightofwayinDetroitarenotunlike
riculture rarely factors into calculations of profit those growing alongside rusted rails in Dakar.
margins; certain social relations woven into the Goats and cattle graze weeds growing up amid
agri-foodsystem—forexampleagriculturalandcu- the cement blocks and rebar of all-but-abandoned
linaryknowledgeanditsculturalsignificance—are buildings. A bean patch is tucked in the 3 metre
impossibletoquantifyandeitherresistcommodifi- wide strip of road shoulder between the asphalt
cation or are erased by a commodified agri-food andthewallofagovernmentbuilding.Anabandoned
system. Since the middle of the last century, the racetrack is a patchwork of vegetable gardens from Do
w
commodificationoffoodhassystematicallyunrav- anearbydrainageditch. n
lo
elled many of these existing social relations and The commons are not solely the vacant spaces ad
e
ctiroenataenddnecwoncsoummmptoiodnityth-dartiv‘‘eunnrdeelramtioinnesothfeprsooduurcce- aangdricwualtsuteralalndressoofutrhceeswoarnldd’sfocoitdiewsabyustitnhcaltudheaavlel d from
ofallwealth—thesoilandtheworker’’atmultiple been commodified (or lost to substitution by a http
scales (Marx, 1976, 638). Farming has evolved commodity)—land,seeds,water,soilfertility,bio- ://c
into a highly specialized industry based on inputs diversity, agricultural and culinary knowledge. jre
s
andoutputsandwhichengageslessthan2percent Several case studies note the biodiversity and .ox
fo
of the US population; over-application of agri- knowledge conserved in urban gardens, particu- rd
chemicals have poisoned farmworkers and created larly by immigrant groups, despite the difficulties jou
rn
amassive‘deadzone’intheGulfofMexico;agri- in retaining these spaces in a commodified land- a
ls
cultural and culinary knowledge have been lost; scapewherelandvaluetrumpsusufructrightsand .o
rg
diabetes, heart disease and obesity have followed municipal codes are often at odds with farming a/
ontheheels ofjunk foodconsumptionworldwide. practicessuch as compostproduction, wastewater t U
p
Asaprotectivecounter-movement,UAattempts recycling and small livestock husbandry.9 As ps
a
to mitigate social rift by de-commodifying land, Johnston (2008) argues, alternative food move- la U
n
labour and food. Various case studies in North ments such as UA can ultimately reclaim these iv
e
America have illustrated how gardens are a site of once-common resources from the enclosure of rs
ite
interactionbetweenvariousagesandethnicgroups, capitalist commodification by: ts
b
whereknowledgeaboutfoodproductionandprep- ib
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aration is shared and community ties strengthened ensur[ing] that access to basic life-goods like te
k
(Baker, 2005; Iraza´bal and Punja, 2009; Saldivar- food can be met through non-commodity chan- o
n
TanakaandKrasny,2004;Shinewetal.,2004).UA nels, particularly when sufficient purchasing M
a
producesnewcommons,byreturning—atleastpar- power is lacking .. Reclaiming the commons y 2
0
tially—the means of production to urban popula- does not necessarily mean that markets and in- , 2
0
tions. The verdure emerging from cities’ marginal dividualconsumptionstylesareeradicated,butit 12
spaces—roadmedians,infrastructurerightsofway, doesdemandthatmarketsbereembedded inso-
vacant lots, wasteland—signals both a reclamation cialstructuresthatensurethatnutritious,sustain-
ofwhatremainsofthecommonsandthecreationof ablefoodgoesnotonlytothosewhocanaffordit
new commons from the interstitial spaces skipped butto everyone. (100–101)
overbycapitalorleftfallowinitsretreat.InEurope
andNorthAmerica,movementstoredevelopindus- For many forms of UA, this sort of Polanyian
trial brownfields as urban green space offer possi- counter-movement amounts to a wresting away of
bilities for scaling up UA (DeSousa, 2004; Rosol, food productionand consumption from the market
2005). While the forces giving rise to UA differ viathevalorizationofunquantifiablesocio-cultural
between the Global North and South, UA joins values and relations traditionally inherent in food.
200