The Role of Urban Agriculture Technologies in Transformation toward Participatory Local Urban Planning in Rafsanjan

Urban Farm DB summary

An exploratory case study of Rafsanjan county, Kerman province, Iran—where agriculture, one of the sectors most vulnerable to water scarcity and climate change, is losing pistachio orchards to water shortages—analyzed the actor network behind the rise of high-tech urban agriculture and examined the role of technology in supporting citizen participation in local urban planning. Against a backdrop where modernizing irrigation and transferring water from other regions had failed to succeed, data gathered through observation, document study, and in-depth interviews with farmers, planners, researchers, and policymakers showed that governmental planning bodies such as the Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO) and the 10-year greenhouse development plan were the most influential actors in the transition, reconfiguring relationships with the private sector, knowledge institutes, and farmers in ways that strengthened participatory decision-making in local urban planning.