Research & reports

Ademola K. Braimoh, Paul L. G. Vlek · Earth Interactions · Ghana

This study quantified land-cover changes in a 2400-ha area of northern Ghana using Landsat images from 1984, 1992, and 1999, and projected future distribution. Remote sensing showed built-up area expansion at 26 ha/year (1984-92) and 35 ha/year (1992-99), alongside peri-urban agriculture development at 24 ha/year (1992-99). Projections indicated built-up areas would cover 39% of the landscape by 2006, at the expense of cropland and natural vegetation.

Sylvaine Lemeilleur, Ludovic Temple, Moïse Kwa · Agritrop (Cirad) · Cameroon (Yaoundé)

This study states that urban development, a key feature of socioeconomic change in developing countries, presents the challenge of increasing food supply to meet urban consumer demands. While peri-urban agriculture offers favorable conditions for intensifying production systems, there is limited research specifically on bananas. Therefore, this work aims to identify banana production systems in the peri-urban agriculture of Yaoundé, Cameroon's capital (1.4 million inhabitants).

Bernard Keraita, Pay Drechsel, Philip Amoah · Environment and Urbanization · Ghana (Kumasi)

This study in Kumasi, Ghana, investigated the influence of urban wastewater on stream water quality and peri-urban agriculture through interviews and water quality assessments. It found that population increase and underinvestment in sanitation facilities led to large volumes of untreated wastewater entering streams. High levels of faecal coliform were recorded in the city's streams, downstream areas, and on vegetables sold in Kumasi’s markets due to contaminated wastewater.

André Fleury, Paule Moustier, Jean-Jacques Toiron · Agritrop (Cirad) · Global

This project aims to analyze the specificities and contributions of peri-urban agriculture to the transformation of peri-urban spaces into urban territories. It seeks to unify analytical concepts for agriculture in urban areas and produce intervention tools for urban planning and agricultural policy. The project hypothesizes that the sustainability of peri-urban agriculture depends on its ability to integrate into urban policy and projects, leveraging diverse urban demands.

Alberto Gurovich Weisman · Cuadernos del Cendes · Chile

This paper examines the creation and persistence of a state territorial intervention model called Worker and Family Orchards, tested from 1929 and legitimized in 1941 through the Caja de la Habitación Popular. The Caja acquired the La Pintana estate in 1942 and built housing on 500 half-hectare plots, opening the first stage in 1946 and further stages in 1950 and 1957. During the critical settlement period of 1979-1985, the number of resident families rose by 327.73%, equivalent to 12.94 times the average for Greater Santiago.

Jeroen H. J. Ensink, Wim van der Hoek, Yutaka Matsuno, Sarfraz Munir, Muhammad Rizwan Aslam · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Pakistan

The use of untreated wastewater for irrigation is widespread in Pakistan's peri-urban agriculture, driven by water scarcity and lack of treatment funds. This practice has led to an uncontrolled expansion of wastewater use. The paper emphasizes the need to document this practice to find improvement methods within the financial constraints of low-income countries.

Maurizio Tiepolo · PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino (Politecnico di Torino) · Niger

This paper investigates whether urbanization in Niamey, Niger, generates or aggravates urban food insecurity by examining agro-pastoral production, food demand, and buying power. It found that Niamey's high rate of urban growth has increased food insecurity for its inhabitants. This insecurity is attributed to low productivity of peri-urban agriculture, insufficient food influxes, rising prices, extreme poverty, and a nutrient-poor diet, with current measures failing to address root causes like land tenure uncertainty.

E. Mensah, Philip Amoah, Robert Clement Abaidoo, Pay Drechsel · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Ghana

This document presents case studies on environmental concerns related to urban and peri-urban vegetable production in Kumasi and Accra, Ghana. It is part of a larger work on waste composting for urban and peri-urban agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Frank Lohrberg · OPUS Publication Server of the University of Stuttgart (University of Stuttgart) · Global

This study argues that agricultural production forms near cities, often overlooked by municipal and environmental policy, are innovative, consumer-oriented, and economically efficient. It suggests that urban and and open space planning should abandon the prejudice that agriculture on the city outskirts is an outdated model. A differentiated view reveals an "urban" agriculture that is more vital than its rural counterpart and can provide important impulses for more sustainable cities and efficient planning.

유병규 · · Global

This paper argues that peri-urban agriculture faces difficulties in maintaining its agricultural production function alone due to external factors such as rising land prices, urban development, the IMF crisis, and WTO agricultural renegotiations. It proposes that to revitalize peri-urban agriculture, a multi-industrialization strategy is needed, emphasizing not only agricultural production but also the spatial concept of "rural areas" by incorporating secondary and tertiary industry concepts. Specifically, the paper suggests that multi-industrialization strategies within the spatial concept of urban-integrated rural areas, such as the creation of "urban agricultural villages," are essential for the maintenance and development of agriculture.

Safiètou T. Fall, Abdou Salam Fall, Ibrahima Cissé, Badiane Aminata, Cheikh Alassane Fall, Maty Ba Diao · Bulletin de l’APAD · Senegal (Dakar)

This paper discusses the integration of horticulture and livestock in urban agricultural systems in the Niayes zone of Senegal. The underperformance of rural agriculture and food deficits have encouraged the development of urban and peri-urban agricultural activities for several decades. The contribution of this urban agriculture to city supply in Senegal is not well known.

Daniel Maxwell, Wordsworth Odame Larbi, Grace Mary Lamptey, Sawudatu Zakariah, Margaret Armar‐Klemesu · Third World Planning Review · Ghana (Accra)

This paper compares four cases within peri-urban Greater Accra, Ghana, to assess the impact of rapid urban sprawl on the surrounding area. The study examines cases including land loss to housing, protection of agricultural land from urban sprawl, environmental degradation due to urbanization, and commercialization of peri-urban agricultural production from changing market demand. The paper also reviews the perspective that rapid peri-urban growth leads to the destruction of agricultural livelihoods without necessarily replacing them with alternative economic activity.

John A. G. Briggs, Davis Mwamfupe · Scottish Geographical Journal · Tanzania (Dar-es-Salaam)

Drawing on recent evidence from Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, this paper suggests that a combination of structural adjustment measures and the eased economic crisis in the 1990s changed conditions, resulting in the increasing commodification of land in the peri-urban zone. This shift transformed the peri-urban zone into an area of investment and economic opportunity, rather than survival, leading to the increasing exclusion of poorer urban groups. Furthermore, confusion arising from current Tanzanian land law, particularly tensions between customary and statutory law, complicates the situation.

· TSpace (University of Toronto) · Uganda

The determinants and impact of integrating forage legumes into intensive smallholder crop/livestock systems in peri-urban areas of central Uganda were investigated using an interview schedule with 90 smallholder milk producers and an econometric model. Findings showed that integration is more likely among farmers with less farmland or proximity to milk and input markets. Farmers integrating legumes into elephant grass obtain more herbage that remains greener into the dry season, spend less on artificial insemination services, and their animals have a lower incidence of disease.

Bernard Hourcade · Revue Géographique de l Est · Iran (Tehran)

This research investigates the origins and current economy of the Anti-Alborz region, an arid mountain east of Tehran, Iran. Due to military compounds and royal hunting grounds, the expansion of Tehran has been artificially limited, leaving the Anti-Alborz as a remote area. In this region, urban, agricultural, and pastoral economies are growing in conflictual ways, indicating governance challenges in managing land use and development.

Martine Berger, Jean-Pierre Frust, Françoise Plet, Marie‐Claire Robic · L’Espace géographique · Global

The concept of rurbanisation is ambiguous, referring either to population overspill into peripheral rural space or to processes affecting peri-urban rural space that lead to a slackening of urban functions. Studies on peri-urban space focus on land assignment changes, social change, land issues, and the specificity/future of peri-urban agriculture. Peri-urbanisation occurs within interacting systems, including socio-economic, state-specific, and urban region systems.