Helping a decarbonized society
Cutting food miles, storing carbon and greening for the climate
Through local consumption that cuts transport, composting that cycles organic matter, and greening that stores carbon, farms are small but real sites of decarbonization and climate action.
290 related cases
Cases where this shows up
Ogo Bamboo Project, Ogo-cho, Kita Ward, Kobe
JPKobe (北区), Japan
A community group based in Ogo-cho, Kita Ward, Kobe, that since 2019 has been clearing neglected bamboo groves and putting the bamboo to use. Left alone, bamboo encroaches on fields, degrades the landscape and shelters crop-raiding animals, so continuous cutting is needed to return the hills to open, managed satoyama. Under the motto "tasty and fun", bamboo and shoots are upcycled instead of discarded — into domestic menma, bamboo craft and the transmission of those skills, and fertiliser made from bamboo chips. Its bamboo-chip compost is used in the Kobe Compost Project's public workshops.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+1
Oota From Your Thota / Garden City Farmers
INBengaluru, India
A Bengaluru organic terrace-gardening movement begun in 2011 that runs recurring events to spread rooftop food growing among urban dwellers. It brings seeds, saplings, compost, tools and know-how together in one place with demonstrations and consultations.
gardencityfarmers.org+2
Thammasat University Urban Rooftop Farm (TURF)
THPathum Thani, Thailand
A rooftop farm inspired by traditional rice terraces that produces about 20 tons of organic food a year, equivalent to some 80,000 campus meals. Its 12 sloped areas act as outdoor classrooms, making it a learning hub where 40,000 students and nearby residents can study sustainable agriculture.
sdgs.tu.ac.th+2
Biohuerto Ayllu 21 (Villa El Salvador, Lima)
PELima, Peru
In an arid peripheral district of Lima, older women turned wasteland into a 1,400 m² agroecological garden. A resident-led response to food insecurity and the climate crisis, it puts urban agriculture at the heart of neighbourhood food and social life.
es.wikipedia.org+2
Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre
ZWHarare, Zimbabwe
A pioneering centre on the outskirts of Harare that has taught permaculture and organic farming for over three decades. Credited with influencing nearly every related project in Zimbabwe, from urban and peri-urban gardens to rural farms, it trains practitioners of climate-resilient agriculture around the capital.
fambidzanai.org.zw+2
Urban Agriculture Casablanca (UAC)
MACasablanca, Morocco
A large research-action project asking whether urban agriculture can make growing megacities more climate-efficient. Set in Greater Casablanca, its model of multifunctional urban agriculture as an urban-planning tool was published as a book and has influenced planning approaches linking urban and rural spheres.
uac-m.freiraum.tu-berlin.de+2
Supporting research
Environmental and Social Dynamics of Urban Rooftop Agriculture (URTA) and Their Impacts on Microclimate Change
Compares an experimental agricultural rooftop with bare roofs, measuring microclimate parameters including air, surface, and indoor temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide. It shows that rooftop agriculture can mitigate urban microclimate change and supply fresh vegetables while delivering environmental and socioeconomic benefits to city dwellers.
Begum M.S., Bala S.K., Islam A.K.M.S. et al. · 2021 · Sustainability (MDPI), 13(16):9053
Comparing controlled-environment-urban agriculture to conventional agriculture across Canada
A life-cycle assessment of controlled-environment urban lettuce found climate-change impacts ranging from 0.8 to 25 times those of conventional lettuce because of high energy demand; in carbon-intensive grids such as Alberta, per-kilogram emissions exceeded conventional agriculture.
· 2026 · Agronomy for Sustainable Development
Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States
Production dominates US food-related life-cycle emissions (about 83%), while all transport accounts for roughly 11% and final delivery only about 4%, undermining the assumption that local food is low-carbon and that cutting food-miles via urban growing yields large climate gains.
Weber C., Matthews H. · 2008 · Environmental Science & Technology
Urban Farming with Enhanced Rock Weathering As a Prospective Climate Stabilization Wedge
This viewpoint article proposes incorporating enhanced rock weathering (ERW) into urban farming as an additional climate stabilization measure. Urban farming utilizes extensive urban surface areas for food production and atmospheric CO2 sequestration through air-to-soil contact. Combining this with ERW offers a further opportunity for this negative emissions technology to gain greater utilization.
Fatima Haque, Rafael M. Santos, Yi Wai Chiang · 2021 · Environmental Science & Technology