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Theorizing Urban Agriculture Through a Lens of Metabolic Rift

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Theorizing Urban Agriculture Through a Lens of Metabolic Rift Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2010, 3, 191–207 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsq005 Advance Access publication 25 March 2010 Why farm the city? Theorizing urban agriculture through a lens of metabolic rift Nathan McClintock Department of Geography, University of California, 507 McCone Hall, #4740, Berkeley, Downloaded from CA 94720, USA, [email protected] Received on July 15, 2009; accepted on December 14, 2009 http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/ Urban agriculture (UA) is spreading across vacant and marginal land worldwide, embraced by government and civil society as source of food, ecosystems services and jobs, particularly in times of economic crisis. ‘Metabolic rift’ is an effective framework for differentiating UA’s multiple origins and functions across the Global North and South. I examine how UA arises from three interrelated dimensions of metabolic rift—ecological, social and individual. By rescaling production, reclaiming vacant land and ‘de-alienating’ urban dwellers from their food, UA also attempts to overcome these forms of rift. Considering all three dimensions is valuable both for theory and practice. at New York University on November 5, 2015 Keywords: alienation, commodification, the commons, metabolism, scale, urban farming JEL Classifications: Q, R Introduction mentary school plant a vegetable garden, the first of its kind at the White House in 60 years. The Part of the momentum surrounding food system relocalization, urban agriculture (UA) is sprouting Vancouver city council legalizes chicken owner- up in the empty spaces of post-industrial landscapes ship within the city limits. ‘Guerrilla gardeners’ in throughout the industrialized world—in vacant lots, London plant a vegetable patch on a roundabout. In road medians, parks—reminiscent of the patchwork Detroit, goats and chickens graze some of the 60 of vegetable gardens and livestock enclosures that square miles of vacant lots left fallow by capital’s are a part of the urban streetscape in much of the flight from the city. Global South. The spike in oil and food prices in The renewed interest in UA should come as no late 2007 and early 2008 and the shocks of the surprise. Historically, urban food production in the current economic meltdown have led to a tightening US and Britain has flourished in such moments of of belts and a growing interest in UA as a way to economic crisis. As we find ourselves once again in lower food costs. Sales of vegetable seeds since the the throes of a crisis of capitalism, the popularity of meltdown have increased 20 per cent and news UA in the Global North has surged and the dis- stories about UA pepper the media at a frenzied course surrounding it has shifted from one of rec- pace. In Washington, First Lady Michelle Obama reation and leisure to one of urban sustainability and a handful of fifth-graders from a nearby ele- and economic resilience. Even the terms used to Ó The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected] McClintock describe it have shifted in the Global North; ‘urban urban geography, agroecology and public health agriculture’ is replacing ‘community gardening’ in would be helpful not only for agri-food scholars everyday parlance, placing it (despite its much but also for practitioners wishing to engage smaller scale) in the same category as UA in with UA. the Global South, where livestock and small plots The theory of metabolic rift offers one such lens. of food crops have persisted as part of the urban Over the last decade, environmental sociologists landscape. and geographers have elaborated Marx’s argument While the motivations and functions of UA vary that the development of capitalism (and the urban- greatly across the globe, the widespread discourse ization that followed) alienated humans from the surrounding UA in the North does little to differen- natural environment and disrupted our traditional Downloaded from tiate it from its Southern counterpart. Over the last forms of ‘social metabolism’, the material transfor- decade or so, as concern over the ecological impacts mation of the biophysical environment for the pur- of urbanization adopts an increasingly Malthusian pose of social reproduction (Clark and York, 2008; timbre, government agencies, non-governmental Foster, 1999, 2000; Moore, 2000; Swyngedouw, organizations and farmers’ groups have touted the 2006).1 For Marx, labour was the key to under- http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/ potential for UA to help buffer incomes and food standing this relationship: ‘‘Labour is, first of all, security in the rapidly urbanizing South (Mougeot, a process between man and nature, a process by 2005; UNDP, 1996; van Veenhuizen, 2006). They which man, through his own actions, mediates, reg- extol the virtues of UA’s multifunctionality: it ulates and controls the metabolism between himself improves food security and creates jobs, serves as and nature’’ (Marx, 1976, 283). Understanding the a sink for urban waste and cools cities. The distance linkages between mid-19th century environmental between production and consumption—so-called crises (such as declining agricultural soil fertility ‘food miles’—decreases, lowering fossil fuel use and rising levels of urban pollution) and the squalor at New York University on November 5, 2015 and transportation costs. In the North, advocates of the worker therefore necessitated an understand- echo this discourse, also adding UA’s ability to ing of the processes that disrupted (or created strengthen a sense of community, reconnect con- a ‘rift’) in pre-capitalist forms of social metabolism. sumers with farmers, raise awareness of environ- Marx ascribed this rift to the expansion of capitalist mental and human health and keep money modes of production (the rise of wage labour, in circulating locally. Ecological farming practices particular) and to urbanization arising from indus- reduce the amount of agri-chemicals used, curbing trialization and the displacement of small-scale environmental pollution and threats to public agriculture: health. In short, advocates argue that UA creates a more ecologically sound, resilient and productive Large landed property reduces the agricultural landscape (UNDP, 1996; Viljoen, 2005). population to an ever decreasing minimum and An undifferentiated view of UA and its possibil- confronts it with an ever growing industrial pop- ities, however, may result in its prescription as ulation crammed together in large towns; in this a panacea for urban ills without consideration for way it produces conditions that provoke an irrep- the geographic particularities of a particular city. arable rift in the interdependent process of social Can we generalize about why people farm in the metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the nat- city? And more importantly, can we make broad ural laws of life itself. The result of this is claims about why people should farm urban spaces? a squandering of the vitality of the soil, which To better understand the dynamics giving rise to is carried by trade far beyond the bounds of UA in various settings in both the North and South, a single country. (Marx, 1981, 949) as well as the ways in which UA has developed as a multifunctional response to these dynamics, a As he explains, this process also cleaves a biophys- theoretical framework bridging political economy, ical rift in natural systems (such as nutrient cycles), 192 Theorizing urban agriculture leading to resource degradation at points of produc- rate processes, these three unified dimensions of tion and pollution at points of consumption. Finally, metabolic rift are co-produced but can be differen- this rift reifies a false dichotomy between city and tiated as a function of both the scale at which met- country, urban and rural, humans and nature, ob- abolic rift occurs and by the grain and extent of scuring and effacing the linkages between them. observation. I should stress here that my intention Many environmental sociologists have used the is not to toss out new terms and concepts simply for theory of metabolic rift to explain shifts in nutrient the sake of adding to an already saturated lexicon of cycling under capitalist agriculture as Marx did Marxian political economy. Rather, I hope to bridge (Clark and York, 2008; Foster, 1999, 2000; Foster and clarify existing concepts and incorporate them and Magdoff, 2000), as well as the ways that sus- into a single framework that accords equal weight Downloaded from tainable agriculture might help to overcome this rift to ecological and social aspects. As such, a theory (Clausen, 2007; Clow and McLaughlin, 2007; of metabolic rift emphasizing its multiple dimen- Foster and Magdoff, 2000). Others have expanded sions may be used more precisely to analyse and the scope of analysis to include broader ecological explain historical and contemporary transformation crises: global warming (Clark and York, 2005; of the agri-food system. http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/ York et al., 2003), fisheries depletion (Clausen My second goal in this paper is to use this ex- and Clark, 2005) and the ecological succession aris- panded view of metabolic rift both to shed light on ing from the development of global capitalism the different dynamics driving the emergence of (Moore, 2000; Prew, 2003). Despite Marx’s con- UA in various parts of the world and to show ception of social metabolism as a fundamentally how UA attempts to overcome these
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