The FEW-meter - an integrative model to measure and improve urban agriculture, shifting it towards circular urban metabolism.

Lead Research Organisation: University of Portsmouth
Department Name: Architecture

Abstract

The project aims to: create a truly comprehensive system to understand the contribution of existing types of Urban Agriculture (UA) to the sustainable development of cities; measure the quantity of produce as well as related energy and water usage associated with UA; expand knowledge about possible health risks, and use this system to ascertain and identify approaches to advance the performance of UA in terms of Food / Energy / Water (FEW) nexus. This will be done through extensive case study analysis from a transdisciplinary perspective, which encompasses key factors of urban food production and consumption systems. Resulting data will be elaborated through modelling of flows (of energy, water and other resources), with a methodology also based on urban metabolism.
Objectives of the project include: the development of an innovative and comprehensive system (FEW-meter) to measure UA from a FWE nexus perspective; the establishment of an on-line community of growers that will help gather data; the development of scenarios of optimal use of urban resources, based on an expansion of UA at city scale; and the generation of digital tools to support urban growers optimising the urban metabolism of their agricultural practices. The project thus contributes to the transformation of cities towards sustainability.

Planned Impact

This project aims at measuring the potential for urban agriculture to utilise urban resources in an urban metabolism perspective. The analysis developed during the project will allow the identification of best practices in urban agriculture, including innovative resource-efficient cropping methods, reduction in energy use, the utilisation of urban waste as nutrient, and responsible food production and consumption. Impact will be generated within the following audiences:

- Communities of urban growers, including members of the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens (FCFCG) - a project partner - as well as all the other growers which will be reached through dissemination activities;
- NGOs and charities working in the sustainable food sector such as Sustain and Food Alliance, which will be contacted in the course of the project and updated on its progress;
- Local authorities such as Portsmouth City Council, which already expressed interest in the project;
- Practitioners working in the field of sustainable food planning and urban design, who will be reached through Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Impact will consist in and be generated as follows:

- Knowledge exchange between urban growers through the digital platform where data collected from case studies will be uploaded; new knowledge co-developed by urban growers and researchers on the optimisation of urban resources finalised to food production;
- Involvement of NGOs, which will be sought from the start of the project: representatives will be invited to participate in workshops, meetings and other dissemination events. Representatives will be also consulted as expert to ensure the relevance and novelty of the project. The network of contacts of FCFCG will be fundamental to reach and involve these NGOs;
- Sharing of findings and reports with local authorities, especially the final report presenting the simulation at a city-scale of the potential for urban agriculture to utilise urban resources. Portsmouth City Council has previously collaborated with Portsmouth School of Architecture and has already expressed interest in this project;
- The School of Architecture has developed a close relationship with RIBA and findings of the project will be shared with this institution and, through them, disseminated to UK architects via website and publications.
 
Description Key findings refer to the initial phase of this project, which started in June 2018 and therefore it is in development. These findings should not be considered final but rather a stepping-stone to more evidence-based findings, which will be developed at the end of the project
The key findings outlined below relate to some of the objectives stated in the application, namely: a) to develop the FEW-meter methodology and b) to gather and analyse data from the case studies.
The project aims at measuring the Food-Energy-Water Nexus in urban agriculture, within the geopolitical area of Europe and the USA. To this end, as for March 2020, the international team (within which the UK partners lead on several work packages) co-developed together with urban gardeners participating in the project a methodology. The process generated the following findings:
• The Food-Energy-Water Nexus for urban agriculture in Europe and USA needs to be redefined and re-conceptualised in order to include social benefits - rather than exclusively material flows - which are an invaluable component of this practice, and that cannot be separated from the productive activities;
• As a consequence of the above, food and energy do not generate merely produce but also social innovation;
• At the same time, although the agenda of groups practicing urban agriculture focuses on social benefits, there are no tools that can produce evidence, capable of linking production and social benefits;
• The methodology requires a mixed method approach - qualitative and quantitative, in order to reflect the organisational complexity of urban agriculture practices in the geopolitical area studies.

Update March 2022:
This is an international project funded under the SUGI call Food-Energy-Water Nexus. The UK partner (ESRC funding) completed the project in November 2021. Other partners (Poland and the US) will complete the project within the end of this year. Hence the findings below may still be not final:
• The methodology developed for this study included quantitative and qualitative data collection. The data analysis demonstrated that resource used in urban agriculture produce significant social benefits (particularly in terms of mental wellbeing) as well as healthy food. Hence, a key finding is that social benefits must be included in any assessment identifying the environmental efficiency of this practice;
• Results from a survey of 74 case studies indicate that farmers engage in urban agriculture with multiple motivations and largely positive impacts, and there are significant differences in motivations and impacts across participants in different urban agriculture types. Economics and nutritional health are comparably weak drivers, while the strongest self-reported impacts are related to a range of general wellbeing impacts;
• Statistical analysis of the productivity and resource consumption data demonstrated that these factors greatly vary (e.g., between 1.1 and 4.6 kg/m2 of food produced in 2019 and between 1.7 and 5.1 kg/m2 in 2020). No clear correlation could be identified between patterns of food production and resource consumption and the weather, the socio-economic profile of the farmers, or their horticultural skills. It could however be surmised that the objectives of each case study can impact productivity, with projects with a strong social agenda (e.g., community gardens) focusing primarily on the wellbeing of their volunteers and much less on productivity and efficiency;
• The LCA at each of the case study sites (under development by the US partner) will be the largest LCA of UA to-date and is expected to be submitted to Nature: Food in mid-2022. Results from the 2019 data indicate that significant variation in carbon footprint exists between urban agriculture types. In our sample, community gardens show the highest environmental impact, due mainly to the material used in their gardens (e.g., raised beds and greenhouses), followed by city farms and allotment sites, However, findings are not final and will be confirmed over the next months;
• The policy study demonstrated that there are significant different approaches to urban agriculture policies between case-study regions, probably due to different planning cultures. For example, the majority of New York City's local policies were funding or incentive-based, while for London the majority of policies are aimed at raising awareness. Most policies in Nantes, Dortmund and Gorzów case-studies are regulations, influenced by the supra-national, mostly regulative, EU policies. In this study, policy experts ranked regulations - rather than incentives or policies aimed at raising awareness) as the most effective type of urban agriculture policy;
Exploitation Route The data collection started in March 2019. It lasts two growing seasons with the second growing season having just started on 1 March 2020. The first growing season ended in October 2019 and data is now being analysed to reach initial conclusions about the redefinition of the Food-Energy-Water Nexus in urban agriculture. This new definition - and tools enabling its measurement - will be an important contribution to research in this field since it is likely to provide tools to develop evidence about the overall benefits of this practice. We anticipate that, subject to all the relevant country and garden approvals, in time there will be data available on the project website on productivity in London (and other cities covered by the project) community gardens as well as an overview of the broad range of functions undertaken by this sector. Other projects may use this data as a baseline for their own data collection or for informing decisions regarding project development. Other gardens will be able to compare their own productivity against that demonstrated by gardens in the FEW-meter sample.

Update March 2022:
Some of the findings summarised above have been published and others will be presented in two key publications to be submitted by mid-2022. Publications are all open access.
A report summarising the main findings, written in non-academic style, will be made available open access in April 2022, on the project website. It will also be forwarded via email to practitioners, policy experts, municipalities and organisations reached in the course of the project.
The project website (www.fewmeter.org) constitutes an invaluable resource where key data are visualised in charts, case study projects are presented, and other resources made available.
The data set will be made available upon request following the completion of the project for all partners (December 2022)
Sectors Agriculture, Food and Drink,Communities and Social Services/Policy
URL http://www.fewmeter.org
 
Description The project started in June 2018. An initial impact is outlined in the Engagement Activities section. This impact is connected to one of the main findings (see Key Findings section), which relates to the need to reconceptualise the Food-Energy-Water Nexus for urban agriculture in order to include social benefits. This is an important issue, because it leads to a different understanding of the nexus, which - in cities - encompasses not only agricultural production but also social factors, hence linking resource usage to the generation of both food and social benefits. The process that led to such a finding (a literature review followed by a series of conversations with people working in community gardens) raised awareness amongst the gardeners. Comments expressed by them suggest that there was an expectation from their side that the recording and sharing of data on, for example, water and energy consumption, produce, change of diets of gardeners and volunteers, trips to the gardens and so on, can lead to an improvement in the resource usage patterns as well as behaviour change. One gardener, for example, commented that she would be keen to show to volunteers the data analysis to help them improve their behaviour in food consumption and access to the garden. Similar comments were formulated by other gardeners. In the UK only (this project is international), more than 50 community gardens and city farms were asked to join the project, with about 15 declaring an initial interest. These 15 gardens engaged in a conversation on the objectives of the project that shaped their perception of the Nexus. 10 out of 15 agreed to become case studies in the project. The evidence generated substantiates a Food-Energy-Water-People Nexus. This, in turn, has been used to quantify the real value of urban agriculture practices and disseminate findings. As of November 2021 (the end of the ESRC funding for the UK partner of the FEWmeter project), the evidence and findings developed through data collection and analysis were disseminated via publications, conferences, participation to other events and - more importantly - via two international webinars that were well attended, very successful, and designed for two different audiences: urban farmers and policy experts. There were about 60 participants in each webinar. Feedback from participants was positive. Findings presented include the environmental impact that urban agriculture generates, which can be higher than the one associated to conventional agriculture. This seems to go against the prevailing narrative of urban agriculture as a practice that is highly sustainable, but there are structural factors driving such an environmental impact which can be addressed. Participants were particularly interested in developing a discussion about these factors and generally found webinars highly informative. Impact on their practices and the approaches to policies will become evident in the near future, as awareness on resource intensive practices will drive behaviour change. Generally, dissemination activities greatly contributed to the establishment of a strong international network of practitioners, policy experts, associations and municipalities which will be instrumental to the continuation of knowledge exchange activities beyond the duration of the project, consultancies and the development of other projects. One of the industry members of this network, for example, was partner in a DEP project funded by AHRC on food waste and anaerobic digestion. Some of the members became partners in a Horizon Europe first stage submission of a proposal on nature-based therapies for health and wellbeing. Such a network is a legacy of this project and will lead to activities generating further impact. Moreover, the project resulted in the investigators developing a strong expertise on the productivity and environmental efficiency of urban agriculture, which is in itself a valuable and useful outcome that can help steer this sector - which is in expansion - towards higher sustainability.
First Year Of Impact 2018
Sector Agriculture, Food and Drink,Communities and Social Services/Policy
Impact Types Societal
 
Description Awareness and request for tool supporting decision making in policy
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact The reach of the impact has been described above. Its significance will be measured over the following two/three years. However, representatives from municipalities and key organisations from 6 cities were reached, the evidence base developed through this research project was shared, and appreciation about the relevance of this evidence base was clearly stated in the course of the webinar. Participants asked for a report in which this evidence base is summarised, which can be used in the near future (presumably over the next two years) to optimise policies and guidelines on urban agriculture and its resource efficiency. The evidence base collected includes: productivity in terms of kg/m2; water and energy consumption; quantity of inputs (fertiliser, insecticide, compost, etc.); environmental impact (LCA); motivations and impact on mental and physical wellbeing of the farmers participating in the study (sample size = 74 case studies). The resulting data base is composed of more than 40,000 entries. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a data base of this size - in the urban agriculture sector - is gathered. It is a valuable contribution to future studies in this field.
 
Description Workshop with policy makers influencing city planning
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact The data collection and analysis has raised awareness of the level of resources used to grow food in cities. As a result, many of the community gardens participating in the project are discussing strategies to reduce water and energy use, involving volunteers in this discussion. The partnership with Social Farms and Gardens (SF&G - the national association representing community gardens and city farms) will ensure that the findings of this project will be further disseminated, This is already happening: we have scheduled a webinar at the end of March to present the comparative analysis of two years of data collection to the urban farmers participating in the project. We estimate the participation of about 100 gardeners from five countries. In the UK, other organisations have agreed to join the webinar. These include Sustain (the Alliance for Better Food and Farming) and Urban Agriculture Consortium, funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. A second webinar is scheduled in October 2021. Participants in the webinar will include more than 15 policy makers from 5 countries, who have been interviewed during the project. Final findings from our project will be presented, in particular those related to a study utilising data gathered over two years, which will be scaled up at a city-level in order to estimate the potential resource use and related productivity in 5 cities. This study is currently under development. This study is expected to generate a major impact in policy and the webinar is expected to be an effective pathway to dissemination. Policy makers attending include members of the London Food Board, representatives from the municipality of Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland, and representatives of the Association NYC Parks GreenThumb, New York City, USA. We are also organising with SF&G a two day seminar on the new directions of Urban Agriculture, in which results from our project will be disseminated. The event is a spin-off from our project. It is a demonstration that, over the past two years, we have been involving partners and other stakeholders in a debate on the Food-Energy-Water nexus in urban agriculture, which is generating further initiatives and a renewed interest in developing evidence of the real contribution of urban agriculture on urban sustainability.
 
Description CIRCULAR BIO-ECONOMY AND FOOD WASTE: DESIGNING A BLUEPRINT FOR SOCIAL HOUSING ESTATES
Amount £20,162 (GBP)
Funding ID AH/W008319/1 
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 10/2021 
End 01/2022
 
Title FEW-meter data gathering tool 
Description As a first step of the FEW-meter project, the international team developed a method to gather data. The method consists in a list of indicators, modalities for data gathering and an analytical framework based on material flow analysis. The general methodology adopted is quantitative and qualitative, thus reflecting the assumption that social benefits, which will be captured through quantitative and qualitative data, are a significant output of urban gardening activities. The data collection method has been defined. A further step of development of the method will aim at organising a material flow analysis which also considers social benefits. Data collection for the first year (2019) ran from 1 March to 31 October and in the UK we collected data on water use; compost, fertiliser, seeds, pesticide use; harvest data and data on number of social and educational events held in the gardens during the year. We also measured all the infrastructure in each garden space to inform a later LCA for each garden and completed questionnaires with garden managers and volunteers. The data collection exercise will be repeated in 2020. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The method was co-created with farmers, who showed positive engagement and an understanding of its usefulness. Having collected information on resource use and output, we are able to construct a dashboard for the website where farmers will be able to see metrics to assist them in planning their garden activities over the 2020 season. Some gardens have already queried how to reduce their water consumption per m2 based on the data we have presented back to them; others have thought again about their food production and how to improve this whilst maintaining their social programme as a primary objective. We plan to further develop the FEW-meter tool for use in other green spaces in cities so that gardeners are more aware of the impact of their current activities and seek to find ways to improve their own efficiency. 
URL http://www.fewmeter.org
 
Title FEW-meter database 
Description We are collecting data gathered in gardens from 5 cities on a protected AirTable section. The number of gardens is around 50. Data collected relate to resource use (energy, water, fertiliser, etc.); food production; destination of food (sold, consumed by gardeners, donated, not eaten, etc.); food prices; economic and organisational profile of each garden (employees, revenues, sources of income, etc.); behaviour of volunteers/gardeners (diets, shopping patterns, etc.); social activities (educational, training, etc.); and connections with other organisations (local councils, NGOs, schools, etc.). This will constitute the evidence base on which we will develop our analysis of the Nexus for urban agriculture. The data collection started on March 1st. The data will be analysed at the end of the growing season, that is, from November 2019 to January 2020. A final analysis will be developed at the end of the second growing season. The database will represent an invaluable resource for future research projects on urban agriculture. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact The database is under development. Therefore no impact has been created yet. The database will be completed in October 2020 and analysed between 2020 and 2021. Update March 2021: The final dataset (2019 and 2020) is substantial in size (about 40,000 entries), documenting resource use and productivity of more than 60 gardens over 5 countries. Data have been analysed or are in the process of being analysed with statistical methods and LCA. Analyses will generate findings on the GHG impact of the sample of gardens, productivity, and more. In the UK, data were collected from 9 gardens in 2019 and 5 gardens in 2020 (4 were unable to continue with data collection for various reasons) and the results from this round will be presented to gardeners at a workshop at the end of the month. The data is also feeding into the LCA models being developed by the US partner. While concluding the statistical analyses of the dataset, we are also developing the part of the project which will predict the potential for, and impact of, a possible upscaling of urban growing at city level. 
 
Description Co-Creation workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact A workshop was organised for the participants in the FEW-meter project, which included farmers or directors of community gardens in London. The workshop was co-creational. An initial methodological outline to gather data was presented, with the aim of engendering debate and ultimately co-create the methodology. The discussion ensued was lively and positive, resulting in agreement on the usefulness of the project and changes in the methodological approach for data gathering and analysis.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Interviews/presentations with urban gardeners/farmers 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This 3-year research project started in June 2018. It is still at an initial stage, and the efforts of the project team are concentrated on methodological and organisational issues, rather than dissemination and impact. The FEW-meter project is largely based on case study analysis. Therefore, recruitment activities in order to identify such case studies were at the core of this initial phase. A call was launched through one of the project partners (Social Farms and Gardens - a charity with more than 600 members amongst community gardens and city farms in the UK), for London-based community gardens, willing to be part of the FEW-meter project. Subsequently, the UK team visited each garden that showed interest, resulting in about 15 visits and presentations of the FEW-meter project and the rationale underpinning it. So far, 8 gardens have been recruited, with the stated goal of recruiting 10 and other visits scheduled before the end of March, when the recruitment phase will terminate. These visits can be considered a dissemination activity in its own right that has generated already some impact. The idea that resources used and produce and social benefits generated can be measured within their gardens, raised great interest not only because of the evidence that will be engendered but also because the process of measuring can trigger behaviour change amongst urban gardeners and volunteers. This was recognised by all the gardeners with whom we engaged, as a positive, strong feature of the FEW-meter project and an opportunity for them to reflect and advance their practices. Moreover, one of the objectives of the project is to run workshops with the participants (i.e. community gardeners) at the end of the growing season (i.e. October/November 2019) in order to discuss the analysis of data gathered (e.g. water and energy consumption, food produced and consumed, food sold, social events run, number of participants to the events and more). This particular initiative was welcomed as one that can prompt further reflection and improvements in organisational and strategic issues for each community garden. It must be noted that the community gardens that declined to participate were interested in the FEW-meter project but they did not feel they had sufficient resources to dedicate to the project (i.e. a gardener or volunteer, capable of collecting data on a regular basis). In any case, these community gardens will be included in future activities of dissemination and considered as part of the broader project's network within which outcomes and outputs of the project will be disseminated. In must also be noted that some of the community gardens recruited are run by charities or social enterprises that have national outreach or that are quite established within Greater London. These organisations include Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming (www.sustainweb.org), Urban Growth (https://urbangrowth.london/) and Cultivate London (https://cultivatelondon.org/). The portfolio of their activities is broad, with a focus not only on urban agriculture but also on sustainable and healthy food supply chains, urban regeneration and social inclusion. They are therefore well positioned to understand the multi-layered implications of the FEW-meter project's outcomes, when these will be established and disseminated. In fact, the project aims at eliciting the nature of Food-Water-Energy Nexus in urban agriculture, which cannot be limited to material flows but must be understood within a socio-ecological frame of interpretation, encompassing social and behavioural dynamics and their impact on the environment.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Symposium: technology and Green Spaces 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Third sector organisations
Results and Impact The symposium was organised in collaboration with the charity Social Farms and Gardens, with the aim of debating how technology is changing the way green spaces are perceived and utilised in cities. It was structured in two sessions: the first one exploring new food technologies and how these are changing the landscape of urban agriculture and the second one looking at digital tools to enhance user's experience in public parks. The day ended with a discussion on the future of these technologies, their risks and benefits, with a very high-level exchange of opinions that will surely set the future agenda for projects in this field.

The symposium was very well attended and participants included organisations such as Forum for the Future, Sustain, Rootlabs and Shared Assets; universities such as University of Salford and The Countryside and Community Research Institute and many other associations that work in the field of urban agriculture and the management of green spaces in cities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Workshop with Urban Farmers/gardeners 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This workshop was organised in order to present to the farmers/gardeners involved in the project (9 case studies in London) the results from the analysis of the data collected during the first year. 14 people attended altogether including representatives from 7 of the 9 gardens. A presentation by the researchers from University of Kent and Social Farms & Gardens explained the objectives and methodology of the project as well as initial findings in terms of output, productivity and social engagement. Discussion with attendees explored any caveats in the data and means by which these may be amended in 2020, additional methods by which the research team can support the gardens to collect data in 2020 as well as how the data can be made more useful to the gardens in 2020. As a result of this workshop, the research team has reviewed its methodology in the UK, will discuss this with the international team and will work to ensure the data collected in 2020 is more accurate and more informative for the gardens involved.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020