MBIBA, Beacon

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Oxford Brookes University: RADAR

here is no longer abundantmaize growing outside theboundary fence of the ele-gantly designed Hotel Interna-tional. In addition, there is littleintegration into planning. In fact,urban and peri-urban agriculturehas been marginalised out ofplanning; it is not considered apriority by the city authoritiesand is being gradually squeezedout by residents seeking lodgingsto rent, as well as developers.Under these circumstances, arecurring question is ‘what factorsdetermine the integration (or otherwise) of urban agricultureinto city planning’?The integration of UA into plan-ning is determined not only bythe character of planning andplanning institutions in a givenplace but also by socio-politicaldynamics relating to access andcontrol of land resources. InLusaka, it can be observed thatthe local planning institutions areweak; the planning departmentlacks the capacity to plan andmost of the current strategicplanning is carried out by donoragencies and their externallyappointed consultancy firms(especially from South Africa)1.The combined effect of thesedeterminants in Lusaka is to marginalise agriculture in theplanning processes (institutionalmarginalisation) while also push-ing it towards the periphery ofthe city: peri-urban agriculture(spatial marginalisation). SOCIO-ECONOMICSETTINGS AND LUSAKA’SSTRATEGIC PLANNINGLusaka’s current population isabout two million people, overhalf of whom reside in peripheral‘compounds’, largely unplannedpreviously informal or squattersettlements. Reports suggest that70% of the city’s populationresides on 20% of the land, thuspointing to a dual city comprisingof extremely high density areasco-existing with spacious lowpopulation density zones(Muwowo 2000, Lusaka CityCouncil 2000). Planning forLusaka since the 1970s has largelyrevolved around programmes toupgrade the ‘compounds’ in termsof provision of improved housing,roads, social services, water andsanitation infrastructure. This is adomain in which large multina-tional donors and local NGOsplay a significant role (see forexample, Agyemang et al.1997,Lusaka City Council 1999, NipponKoei Co. Ltd. 1999). The spatial growth of the city todate was supposed to be guidedby the 1975 ‘Greater LusakaDevelopment Plan’ whose fullimplementation was howeverconstrained by limited capacityand financial resources, due to ashrinking economy since the late1970s. Recently, signs of econom-ic stability and recovery haveemerged, buttressed by donorfunding. A new strategic plan forthe city has been identified asnecessary to guide these new developments. Whereas, the legalrequirement is that the masterplan be reviewed every five years,this has never been undertakenfor the 1975 Development Plan.Thus over the years, land use hasdeveloped in unforeseen direc-tions hence the need for a new19july 2001_________________Beacon Mbiba, Co-ordinator,Urban and Peri-Urban ResearchNetwork (Peri-NET), Faculty of theBuilt Environment, South BankUniversity, UK;)mbibab@sbu.ac.ukThe Marginalisationof Urban Agriculture in LusakaFruit market in HarareBeacon MbibaIn 1987, Sanyal suggested that Lusaka, Zambia, was the capital city of urban agriculture (UA) in Africa. This was at the peak of Zambia’s economic crisis when residents took up UA as a form of employment andto improve their nutritional status.  Travelling in the region today, one will easily agree that Harare, Zimbabwe, has taken over as the capital ofurban agriculture and that the activity may not be as widespread inLusaka as observed by Sanyal in the 1980s. T20strategic plan. However, despite all theseobvious reasons, local actors in Lusakaallege that the impetus for this plan camefrom the World Bank which provided thefinancial resources and appointed a teamof South African consultants to prepareit2. A draft strategic plan was then sub-mitted in June 2000 and was still awaitingministerial approval as of March 2001.THE NEGLECT OF URBANAGRICULTURE IN THE STRATEGICPLANGenerally, little direct mention is made inthe plan, on urban and peri-urban agri-culture. It appears that there was noattempt to conduct a detailed primarysurvey of the activity, though the reportby Agyemang et al. (1997) which includeda small section on UA was used. Even interms of secondary data, the plan did notdraw on the large literature base thatexists on the topic for the city of Lusaka. Urban agriculture was discussed in thecontext of open space management andthe need for sustainable environmentaldevelopment. In section 1.8.4.3, the planrecognises the presence of open spacesand agricultural land amounting to400,000 hectares in the form of agricultu-ral smallholdings at the periphery andkitchen gardens, where a variety of cropssuch as potatoes, cassava, maize and veg-etables are grown. Aspects of livestockproduction and commercial horticulturewere also identified. The latter is largelyfound in areas outside the Lusaka Districtboundary, where close to 90% of theactors are possibly foreign business people3. The plan supports a vigorousenvironmental approach to managementof these activities.However, other than the environmentalview of these activities, the study to theplan did not capture the political and eco-nomic dimensions of UA and its povertyalleviation potential. It seems to have beeninfluenced by a modernisation philosophyleading to a strategic perspective that failsto draw out employment potentials in thesector as initially identified in another sec-tion of the plan. This issue could begleaned in section 3 where it is stated that:Agriculture is a major employer in theLusaka economy.  However, as Lusaka is abuilt up urban area and more and moreagriculturally productive land is taken upfor urban purposes, it is not believed thatthere is any scope for long term growth inthis sector.The plan thus fails to interrogate the issuefurther. Yet maps produced show that alot of open spaces exist which could becomprehensively used for agriculture, toboost growth and employment. Secondly,no synthesis and strategy to protect agri-culturally productive land from beingreplaced by building development sites isgiven. Lusaka still has untapped potentialfor upward growth, an approach thatwould draw away pressure from existingopen spaces.THE “COMPACT CITY”PERSPECTIVE AND IMPLICATIONSFOR URBAN AGRICULTUREUrban agriculture in Lusaka will also beaffected by the “compact city perspective”adopted in the strategic plan (also seen inNairobi and Harare) and described aspart of the ‘new urbanism’ (Mbiba 2001).Section 2 of the Lusaka IntegratedDevelopment Plan captures this as fol-lows: “Before Lusaka expands outside thecurrent district boundary, it is imperativethat infilling of residential and commer-cial areas takes place.” This implies thatall vacant land within residential areasshould be used for building developmentsites before further expansion outwards.The rationale is that such open spaces arebetter serviced (with water, roads andsewer lines) relative to more peripheralsites and therefore cheaper to develop. The result is that agriculture is pushedout of the more central areas towards theperiphery of the city; these sites demandlonger travel times not available to poorurban residents. This peripheral future ofurban agriculture was endorsed in aninterview with Councillor Judith Simusyaof Lubwa Ward 29 who indicated that:“As council, we have not tackled UA.  We donot have a strategy as such….    For us, weprovide UA on smallholdings 5 km awayfrom the city… that we promote.  On openspaces within the city, we discourage it butdo not slash crops”. (Interview 08/03/2001)However, even in the smallholdings, thecouncil does not provide any materialsupport. Instead, this support comesRoasted Maize cobs sold along the major roads in HarareUA-MagazineREFERENCES- Agyemang OA (Kofi), Chirwa B and Muya M. 1997. Managing the Sustainable Growth and Development of Lusaka:An Environmental Profile of the Greater Lusaka Area. Report prepared for Lusaka City Council, UNDP, UNCHS andGovernment of the Republic of Zambia. Lusaka.- Government of Zambia. 1975. Land (Conversion of Titles) Laws of Zambia. Chapter 289. Lusaka: GovernmentPrinter.- Lusaka City Council. 1999. Annual Report of the Housing and Social Services Department, Lusaka City Council.Lusaka.- Lusaka City Council. 2000. Lusaka Integrated Development Plan 1999 (Final Draft, June 2000). Prepared by V3Consulting Engineers. Lusaka City Council Lusaka.- Lusaka City Council. 2000/2001. Report of the Adhoc Committee on Improper Land Allocation in Lusaka. LusakaCity Council. Unpublished Report.- Mbiba B. 2001. The Political Economy of Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in Southern and Eastern Africa:Overview, Settings and Research Agenda. Presentation for the MDP/ESA workshop, ‘The Political Economy ofUrban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in East & Southern Africa’ in Harare, Feb.-March 2001.- Muwowo P. 2000. Environmental Problems and Gardening in Urban and Peri-urban Areas of Lusaka, Zambia.Insight (Incorporating Lusaka City News) 9 (December): 7. Lusaka: Sustainable Lusaka Programme.- Nippon Koei Co. Ltd. 1999. The Study on Environmental Improvements of Unplanned Urban Settlements in Lusaka:Inception Report. Lusaka: Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) and Ministry of Local Government andHousing.- Sanyal B. 1987. Urban Cultivation Amidst Modernisation: How Should we interpret it? Journal of Planning Educationand Research 6 (3): 187- 207.-The Times of Zambia. 1999. Illegal Plot Developers Given Ultimatum (14 October). - -The Times Zambia. 1999. Chainama Land Row Brewing (21 September). -The Sunday Times. 1999. Comment: Land Issue A Serious Business (7 November).-The Times. 2000. Illegal Settlers Invade Kanakantapa (11 July).-The Times. 2000. Illegal Occupations: Police Evict Squatters (6 July).The result is that UA is pushed out of the more central areasBeacon Mbibafrom NGOs who work with cultivatorsand community groups.SOCIO-POLITICAL CONTEXTS ANDLAND DIMENSIONSThe view by councillor Simusya that “urban agriculture is an issue of land’ isshared by many in Southern and EasternAfrica (see Mbiba 2001). The urban landon which agriculture does or can takeplace could be used for many other purposes. Ownership, access and perceptions of good use of land are allsocially contested matters that do notfavour it. Prevailing processes in Lusakaseem to confirm this view.As from 1975, land ownership and accessin Zambia was governed by the Land(Conversion of Titles) Act (Chapter 289)which abolished land sales, transfers,alienation of land for value and restrictedagricultural landholdings. This act wasrepealed in 1995 restoring value to undeveloped land. As a result of thesestatutory changes, public perceptionschanged on how to use land, as well as onthe importance of ownership, controland access to land sites for buildingdevelopment. A real estate marketemerged and is now growing steadilywith an emphasis on building site development and not on urban agri-culture. Key processes observed are:(a) Open spaces are used for prestigiouscommercial and residential develop-ments with involvement of internationalcapital such as at Manda Hill Out ofTown Shopping Centre, the upcomingOAU Complex in Long-acres, housingdevelopments in the Ibex area, theChinese Trade/Cultural Centre nearKalingalinga residential area, and so on.(b) Investments and investors take landfrom the poor or get preferential treat-ment vis à vis the poor and UA.(c) Land is being sold illegally by officialsand politicians.(d)Conflicts between different groupsand competing claims on the same pieceof land occur.(e) Illegal development of houses for rentis taking place.(f) There are rising levels of land dis-putes.The Times of Zambia has reported onmany of these processes while the CityCouncil in 2000 set up a Committee toinvestigate the ‘rampant’ illegal land deal-ings by its officials and councillors(Lusaka City Council, 2000-2001). TheTimes of Zambia reported on July 6th 2000:“Police in Lusaka Yesterday evicted over500 squatters who invaded 40 acres ofUniversity of Zambia land and demarcat-ed it into residential plots on the borderwith Kalingalinga Township.” At thetime, the land being reserved for futureexpansion of the university was beingused for agricultural production by someresidents. But this article clearly shows that the ‘res-idential movement’ and demand forhouses by the poor seem to be strongerthan that for agriculture. Other press arti-cles and the Lusaka (2000/2001) reportsuggest that powerful local politiciansand patrons use the poor to invade urbanopen spaces not only for political patron-age but also as a way to access sites onwhich to built structures from which togenerate rental incomes. The rentalincome option appears more attractivethan the benefits derived from agricultu-ral activities.CONCLUSIONGrey literature and anecdotal interviewevidence from Lusaka highlight thatamong other things, the conduct andcontent of current strategic planningefforts coupled with formal and informalland market dynamics reinforce theexclusion of agriculture rather than itsintegration into urban planning anddevelopment. Current efforts at strategicplanning in Lusaka are largely managedby external agencies driven by a westernmodernist view of the city. These havetended to ignore the urban agriculturereality. Although these efforts have strongconcerns for ‘environmental biodiversity’,they have missed opportunities toexplore and develop urban agriculture asa sector within which to tackle issues ofurban economy and poverty alleviation.The plans and planning exclude ratherthan integrate urban agriculture.Urban agriculture is further excluded byongoing social and political processesaround issues of control and access toland in the city. The priority seems to beto focus on the conversion of undevel-oped sites (both formally and informally)for building site development and awayfrom UA. Given these processes and thecontext, it seems that Lusaka’s agricul-ture will become more active at theperiphery (peri-urban agriculture) thanin other city open spaces. Consequently,there is a need for a formal process toexplore and put in place a peri-urbanagriculture review programme as anextension or complement to the justcompleted Lusaka IntegratedDevelopment Plan.NOTES(1)  A view expressed by officers in the City Counciland confirmed by a cursory review of planning andprogramme documents for the city.(2)  A view expressed by Mr F Mwale, former mayorof Lusaka City (Interview discussion, March 2001).(3)  The team of consultants comprised of V3Consulting Engineers, LASCO Engineers, UrbanDynamics and Urban Econ.21july 2001Crop productionalong the road inDar Es SalaamUrban Vegetable Promotion ProjectThe rental income option appears more attractive than the benefits derived from UA

The Marginalisation of Urban Agriculture in Lusaka

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The Marginalisation of Urban Agriculture in Lusaka

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