ABSTRACT
Food production historically played an important role in cities, and this role is increasingly being rediscovered by local food advocates in contemporary urban areas. For example, prior to the adoption of the automobile, cities were sites of intense agricultural production, with food production, processing, and distribution occurring throughout the larger cityscape. More broadly, depending on the context, there was typically a network between cities and a larger radius of agricultural production, sustained by the urban area’s steady supply of cheap fertilizer. Today, urban agricultural initiatives take on many manifestations and are informed by a wide range of goals and values. For example, some projects focus on providing consumers with farm-fresh produce, while others attempt to improve urban citizens’ access to foodstuffs, increasing the food sovereignty of marginalized urban communities, and so forth. Philosophical literature on this topic provides an important analysis of these values, teasing out and making explicit the various normative, metaphysical, and justice frameworks guiding urban agricultural projects.
This chapter provides an overview of philosophical work on urban agriculture, paying particular attention to the fields of philosophy of agriculture and philosophy of food. Specifically, the chapter opens by providing a brief historical analysis of philosophical work on agriculture and food before moving on to discuss the state of urban agricultural initiatives today. The chapter then discusses the current state of philosophical work on urban agriculture and key topics in this area, from food sovereignty (or food justice) movements to consumer ethics and the Farm to Table movement. The chapter will end by identifying important areas of future research for the field, discussing the power and promise of urban agriculture to help design cityscapes of the future.
