Mestno kmetijstvo - Oblike in izkušnje

Abstract

An issue of urban and periurban agriculture becomes more and more urgent because of towns spreading into their rural surroundings and because of decreasing nutritional competence of the people in Slovenia. The basic goal of the article is to stimulate an interest for this rather new area of agriculture, while its' aim is to present state-of-art in the field of urban agriculture, as well as examples of good practice in the developed countries. Urban agriculture is an industry located within (intra-urban) or on the fringe (peri-urban) of a town, a city or a metropolis, which grows and raises, processes, and distributes a diversity of food and nonfood products, using or reusing largely human and natural resources, products, and services found in and around that urban area, and in turn supplying human and material resources, products, and services largely to that urban area. Key determinants of urban agriculture are its spatial, economic, social and ecological incorporation into vivid tissue of modern towns/cities/metropolis that is generated and consolidated by the needs of urban population. The most common models of urban agriculture are gardening and locally supported agriculture, although new commercially oriented models, e.g. SPIN agriculture, are emerging recently.