Most land (38.6%) modified by humans for agriculture (pasture + croplands) is about 19.4 million square miles. Another 14.9% (about 7.7 million square miles) is land that is modified for other uses (logging, mines, planted forests, erosion, urban areas). If the urban areas constitute about the 3% of these 7.5 mill. square miles then 58.275 Ha is the land occupied by urban areas in the world. How could I estimate the number of hectares that are used in urban agriculture in the world? Would FAO have this information? Where?
FAO assessed that 800 million people worldwide produce in cities vegetables, fruit, raising of animals, providing in this way an astonishing 15-20% of the world food. Your estimate - 58 275 ha - seems imply, in the context of the FAO data, that each of those hectar provide food for about twenty thousand people. It seems a lot, maybe there is a need of fine-structure analysis to assess hectars that can be defined as dedicated to "urban agriculture".
Hi Massimo and Kenneth,
Thank you for answering/commenting my question. The 58.275Ha are inclusive of roads, buildings, parking lots, shopping malls and similar infrastructure. From my score here above I would like to figure out the actual number of Ha. that are cultivated within urban areas. Thanks!
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Atmospheric Sciences
- Climate Science
- Climate Change