Community food-growing
and urban agriculture projects help well-being in the following ways:
The work itself is therapeutic for participants,
because it involves hands-on and useful achievements that reduce stress levels
and support their mental health.
·The urban agriculture setting is advantageous
in offering people a routine that is easy to understand and engage with.
Working with plants or animals allows participants to have space and tasks to
themselves, with their routine guided by the care needs of the plants or
animals. The process of caring for something encourages satisfaction and
self-esteem.
·Simply working physically, outdoors and in
a natural environment, contributes to mental well-being for participants.
·Communities developed through food-growing
and urban agriculture projects help participants to feel part of something with
other people. Supportive relationships relieve stress and improve self-esteem.
Community
food growing and urban agriculture projects have particular strengths in this
respect. They were seen to develop the following transferable skills:
·
Self-management and personal responsibility
Learning
to behave appropriately and to meet expectations in the work that is done.
·
Problem solving
The
ability to understand practical problems or interpersonal problems and to
address them.
·
Teamwork and communication skills
The
ability to work well in a team, to support others, or to lead others. These is few example of simple urban agriculture:
For this research i did online survey on few people based on these questionnaire:
Gender *
Female
Male
Age *
17 or younger
18 - 25
25 - 30
31- 40
41 or older
Occupation *
Unemployed
Student
Private sector worker
Government sector
worker
Other
Do
you know what urban agriculture is? *
Yes
No
Not sure
Do
you think we can do agriculture in city/urban agriculture? *
Yes
No
If
you live in city area and you like to do agriculture, would you take the
opportunity to do the urban agriculture? *
Yes
No
Do
you think urban agriculture can be done as a hobby? *
Yes
No
Would
you like to do urban agriculture as your hobby during your free time? *
Yes
No
If
you do urban agriculture, would you like to... *
sell the product to a
market
keep it as your daily
food
decoration in your
house
Other:
Do you think urban
agriculture will generate profit in your life? State the reason. *
In
your opinion, do you think Malaysia experiences insufficient of fresh food
productions? *
Yes
No
For
example, Malaysia has problems with shortage of food productions, (fruits,
vegetables, etc.) do you think urban agriculture will solve the problem? *
Yes
No
Other:
As
we all know, Malaysia slowly became an urban city and a lot of ecology problem
(air pollution, water pollution and etc); do you think urban agriculture will
help.... *
reduce the problem
make the problem
worse
Other:
Do
you know, we can use waste such as bottle, tire, and eggshell to plant the
vegetables?or other interesting way to do urban agriculture?Give example. *
Conclusion:
Based on the survey that i conducted, more than half of respondent not know what is urban agriculture. Even so, they believe they can do agriculture in urban city. Even though they don't really know about urban agriculture, some of the respondent would like to do it as their activities during free time. They also think these activities would bring them some profit. Some of them, would like to do these activities as a hobby and do urban agriculture to decorating their house and use it for their self. They also give some ideas how to do urban agriculture in creative ways.
