Recipes to Grow Together: Circular Urban Agriculture for Järfälla Municipality
By Elise Daenekindt, Yuqi Guo, Nazanin Keshipour, Luca Mónus & Lina Schirmer
With the global population set to reach 10 billion by 2050, urban centres face mounting migration challenges and a rising life expectancy. Cities are expanding, often at the expense of farmland, increasing dependence on long-distance food imports. In Sweden, this is especially relevant as self-sufficiency has only been achieved in three crops: sugar, carrots, and cereals. Urban agriculture has emerged as a powerful approach to address food security and sustainability challenges by tapping into unused urban spaces like rooftops and vacant lots to enhance local food production. While the potential benefits of integrating urban agriculture into planning are noteworthy, its implementation faces challenges, particularly in densely populated areas where the land is scarce, the cost of maintaining green spaces is high, and surface runoff is highly polluted
Historically, the municipality of Järfälla used to be dominated by agricultural activity; however, the Industrial Revolution altered the economic activity and land uses. Recently, Järfälla is shifting its focus back to promoting accessible and sustainable agricultural practices, as outlined in the Comprehensive Plan “Option Zero”. The municipality aims to address food security and dependence issues that come with a growing population; therefore, there is great potential for exploring the dual function of urban agriculture.
Additionally, from meetings with planners in the municipality, there is a need for creating more lively city centres that are more attractive places to live. Urban agriculture can address these issues by creating a more resilient food system and acting as a tool for strengthening community bonds.
With this in mind, we have designed our proposal as a cookbook with intervention recipes. The “cookbook” is grounded in two main concepts to achieve resilient food systems and strengthen community bonds while maintaining clear nods towards circularity: Edible Landscaping and Place attachment. Edible landscaping involves greening public spaces with edible plants that do double duty, supporting local food production and ecological health. Place attachment - the sense of belonging and identity people create from a place - builds community, enhances social bonds, and strengthens our connection to the spaces we live in. Through edible landscaping and place attachment, we offer actionable steps to create a stronger food system that is social, sustainable, and resilient. Each “recipe” guides developing more diverse and resilient green agricultural spaces that can be sustainable in an accessible, familiar format that resonates with everyone - whether you are a planner or a resident. The proposal focuses on bringing urban agriculture closer to areas with unique socio-economic characteristics.
