Farmers on the fringe: peri-urban agriculture and urban waste

Solid and liquid wastes are a valuable resource for poor people living around cities.  Informal use of urban wastes in farming and aquaculture is vital to livelihoods and a key component of waste disposal, but is not integrated into official urban waste management strategies.

A report from the Development Planning Unit atUniversity College London in the UK examinesthe reuse of urban waste in theperi-urban interfaces (PUIs) on the outskirts of cities in Ghana, Nigeria and India.

Many municipal authorities are unable to safelytreat and dispose of solid and liquid waste. This provides relatively easyaccess to sewage and solid organic waste, which enables poor people to engagein agricultural production. Farmers with land alongside sewage-bearing streamsuse the effluent to irrigate vegetables, field crops, fodder grass andagroforestry areas. Waste-using farmers provide casual employment such as weeding,waste picking and sorting for the most marginalised people, particularly womenand children.

Solid waste provides agricultural soil withvaluable nutrients, while sewage is an inexpensive way for farmers to irrigateplots during the dry season. However, limited knowledge prevents peri-urbanfarmers from maximising benefits from urban waste. Most are unaware of how toavoid the risks involved in using water polluted with faecal matter andindustrial pollutants and cannot afford protective equipment. Many lackinformation about composting and the benefits of organic manure.

Officials are generally unsupportive. In Indiaand Nigeria, the state subsidises chemical fertilisers instead of supportingwaste re-use schemes. Strategies to deal with increasing amounts of urban wastetypically go around small peri-urban farmers and support commercial schemessupplying and benefiting higher-income customers. Planners are not aware of therole of peri-urban fishponds in wastewater management, or just how much urbanwaste is deposited on fields and how this reduces pressure on dumping sites.

The author reports that:

• Sewage can cause excessiveweed growth and encourage pests, forcing farmers to increase the use ofpesticides.
• Female labourers are particularlyexposed to pathogens and toxins, which they risk transferring to their familieswhen preparing food.
• As urbanisation acceleratesand the organic component of urban waste declines, waste products are becomingharder to access. This means urban waste is an unreliable resource.
• The commercialisation ofwaste is a threat to small farmers.
• The growth of private sectorcomposting schemes produces expensive products which are often transported faraway. This creates competition over waste resources with small local farmers.

It is time for PUI farmers to be acknowledgedas important stakeholders in urban waste management. Policymakers need toconsider all the variables relevant to measuring costs and benefits of usingurban waste. They should:

• realise that sustainableresource management systems must be based on knowledge of traditional practicesof farmers
• promote associations able torepresent the needs of poor farmers and engage in dialogue with the state
• raise awareness and providefinancial incentives to overcome reluctance to handle or separate organic waste
• do more research: there arestill too many uncertainties about how to handle urban waste safely andproductively.