Growth - The Commercialisation Of Urban Agriculture: The Values, The Stories

Sammanfattning: The role of food is changing, giving rise to new practices within food production. This is a peek into the phenomenon of commercial urban agriculture in industrialised cities, told through stories from people within the urban agriculture community in New York City. In an abductive fashion we have been looking at the values attributable to such practices and how they today are starting to be commercialised. The value categories of product, process, emotion and location were explored, where the definition of location value was expanded and a fifth category of societal values introduced. It's evident that the phenomenon originates from a need of food security and safety, however in cities of industrialised countries the most important aspect is how such practices is a way of re-connecting the urban dweller to food. The positive impact it can have on society, as well as the product and process values which lies in placing food production close to consumption are other important points brought up. Who you are at the market impacts what and how you value certain aspects of the urban agriculture practice, thus a value does not have to be category exclusive. These values seems to reach the market through using judgement devices such as preconceived labels and categories as well as the telling of stories; stories of production, place, process and people. The following pages give market actors reasons to engage further with urban agriculture practices, tools and arguments to use in a commercialisation process, along with being an opening into further research.