Assessing sustainability of urban and Peri-Urban agricultural development in Mumbai

Abstract

With the ongoing developments, maintaining sustainability is quite a challenging task. Rapid urbanization has led to shift in agriculture in many Indian metropolitan cities. One such city is Mumbai, where transformation of agricultural land for housing purposes has resulted in scarcity of land forcing people to find alternative solutions to meet the food challenges. Various Urban and Peri-urban agricultural (UPA) activities like terrace farming, balcony farming, vegetable production along railway tracks, usage of waste water and sewage for irrigation, goat keeping, tables etc. has helped the residents to sustain the agricultural production in the city. This paper tries to assess the level of sustainability (Ecologically, Environmentally and Economically) of UPA development in one of the global cities of India i.e. Mumbai. Further, it reveals the limitations of UPA and provides possible measures for ensuring sustainability.