Addressing Food Insecurity
in Urban Areas Through Urban Agriculture
Sustainable Development Goals Addressed:
SDG Goal 2: Zero hunger
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture
SDG Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Despite significantly producing the nation's fruits and vegetables, Arizona faces substantial food security challenges. About one in eight people and one in five children in Arizona face food insecurity. Furthermore, urban growth over the past two decades has resulted in the loss of traditional agricultural spaces. The loss of these spaces increases the community's dependency on food imports. For instance, in 2022, Mexico supplied 51% of U.S. fresh fruit imports and 69% of fresh vegetable imports, indicating a substantial reliance on imported produce in the region. Such dependence makes our communities vulnerable to disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic was a clear example of a disruption that made our communities vulnerable and threatened food security. Urban agriculture, including small plot farming, community gardening, indoor farming, and aquaponic farming, presents a viable solution to mitigate these challenges by providing productive spaces within cities, enhancing food security, and promoting sustainable development. However, identifying suitable urban areas for agriculture and effectively communicating their importance to policymakers remain significant challenges.
Problem Statements
How can satellite data be used to identify areas at risk of food security in urban settings?
What innovative strategies and community-driven initiatives can be implemented to enhance urban agriculture in Phoenix, and can we use satellite data to identify where these could be located in a fast-growing city?
What benefits and challenges do urban agriculture initiatives present for reducing food insecurity, and how can these be implemented with the support of local policymakers?
Resources
Track Resources:
Provide data on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality
This data set can help identify parcel size/size of potential urban farms
These maps can help identify areas that are already being used as urban farms and may not be registered
The Landsat-Derived Global Rainfed and Irrigated-Cropland Product (LGRIP) provides high resolution, global cropland data to assist and address food and water security issues of the twenty-first century. As an extension of the Global Food Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD) project, LGRIP maps the world’s agricultural lands by dividing them into irrigated and rainfed croplands, and calculates irrigated and rainfed areas for every country in the world. LGRIP data are produced using Landsat 8 time-series satellite sensor data for the 2014-2017 time period to create a nominal 2015 product.
The GFSAD is a NASA funded project (2023-2028) to provide highest-resolution global cropland data and their water use that contributes towards global food-and-water security in the twenty-first century. The GFSAD products are derived through multi-sensor remote sensing data (e.g., Landsat-series, Sentinel-series, MODIS, AVHRR), secondary data, and field-plot data and aims at documenting cropland dynamics from 2000 to 2030
CroplandCROS hosts the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) and allows users to easily conduct area and statistical analysis of planted U.S. commodities, geolocate farms, and map areas of interest. User guides and instructional videos are available at the CroplandCROS website.
Offers datasets for climate that can be analyzed to assess suitability for urban agriculture
NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS)
Provides satellite imagery and climate data, including temperature, precipitation, and vegetation indices.
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) – Web Soil Survey
Provides information on soil characteristics, which can be combined with climate and rainfall data to assess land suitability for agriculture