Introduction

The introduction makes the case for why it is important to envision alternatives to current socioecological practices, for both psychological as well as social movement reasons. Mounting evidence suggests that many converging environmental crises are caused by unequal social structures, thus social scientists have insights into how inequalities shape environmental problems and what can be done to solve them. This book explores two holistic examples of socioecological sustainability: an urban ecovillage in the United States and an urban farm in Cuba. It argues that alternative visions and solutions must be holistic, attending to the social and ecological aspects of sustainability. With these insights, communities can develop a vision that will help them move beyond debilitating fear and denial toward a just transition to a new economy.

Scaling Up the Values Themselves

The fifth chapter develops a radical sustainability framework by examining the socioecological values in sustainability experiments that exist in different political-economic contexts, the ecovillage in the United States and the urban farm in Cuba. It asks: What are the environmental values and stories that each case demonstrates? An argument is made for a paradigm shift from human’s war with nature to human’s collaboration with nature to regenerate a thriving biosphere. This means shifting Western culture away from that of atomized, competitive, self-interested individual consumers who use technology to dominate nature. And it means shifting toward a new culture that values community ties, cooperation with the socionatural world, “plentitude” or sufficiency, local self-reliance, and physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being for all. In addition, it means creating an economy built on social justice and environmental regeneration.

Multi-System Urban Waste-Energy Self-Circulation: Design of Urban Self-Circulation System Based on Emergy Analysis

The current worldwide state of energy scarcity and low waste utilization has led to a decrease in the supply of ecological services, something that seriously affects the development of cities. In this study, we propose an urban self-circulation design based on multiple systems within the traditional biogas, wetland, rainwater, solar power, and urban farm systems framework to achieve effective improvements in urban waste utilization and the optimization of the urban waste–energy flow cycle. Emergy conversion is used to evaluate system optimization, and the simulation results show that the novel proposed system can effectively improve urban waste utilization with an energy output rate of 3.18 × 10, an environmental load of 4.27 × 10−2, and a sustainability index of 7.45 × 102 in the core system; additionally, it can improve resource utilization of small-scale cities with an energy output rate of 1.85 × 100, an environmental load of 1.20 × 100, and a sustainability index of 1.54 × 100 in the total system. The inter-system energy flow model can significantly optimize urban energy systems based on ecological models with low-emergy resource input, including biogas systems and urban farm systems. This model can reduce the environmental load and effectively compensate for the reduced supply capacity of ecosystem services caused by urbanization, making it suitable for extension to other small-scale built environments that are relatively independent and rich in natural resources.

Energy saving in a urban farm with a heat pump

Despite the high urbanization in the world, at the level of 55% in Europe and the USA, there is still a culture of home gardening in cities, both for decorative purposes and for growing crops for consumption in the household. This tradition is favored by the prevalence of low-rise buildings, whose share in the USA is 92%, in Europe 80%, in Russia only 52%. Due to the lack of access to land, the inhabitants of Russia need new approaches to crop production, which will allow access to fresh vegetables at home, such methods can be aero and hydroponic plants that allow growing plants without soil, and these plants can be easily automated. Due to the specifics of the housing stock in Russian cities, a balcony or a loggia was determined as the best place for installing personal farms. The balcony or loggia are unheated rooms of the apartment, redevelopment with the balcony or loggia attached to the room or the transfer of heating devices is prohibited, therefore, to arrange optimal conditions for plants, along with warming, this room must be heated. Calculations showed that to maintain the required temperature on the insulated The balcony of an apartment building in Moscow will require 7488 MJ of thermal energy for the entire heating period. The cost of electricity costs per year, when using a heat pump, can be reduced by more than 35% compared to electric heating, and the energy consumption during conditioning is also taken into account in the total cost of heat supply using a heat pump, which allows you to create more favorable temperature conditions in summer.

Analysis of Household Participation in Urban Agriculture: Empirical Evidence from Urban Households in Kogi State, Nigeria

The study analysed household participation in urban agriculture in Kogi State, Nigeria. It specifically; described the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents; determined the factors that influence household participation in urban agriculture; and determined the effect of urban agriculture on household income. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 60 respondents each from four purposively selected peri-urban/urban centres in Kogi State: Lokoja (Zone A), Anyigba (Zone B), Okene (Zone C), and Idah (Zone D). Primary data obtained through questionnaire administration were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools. Findings from the study revealed that 61.7% of the respondents were males and a mean age of 43 years was recorded. Married (90%) household heads dominated the respondents with a mean household size of 7 members. Education (β = -0.862), dependent (β = 1.904), marital status (β = 2.544), access to sufficient food (β = -2.495), employment status (β = 1.307) and access to land (β = 0.505) statistically influenced household participation in urban agriculture, while the OLS output indicated that urban farm income (β = 17.539) and non-farm income (β = 848.798) had significant effect on total household income. The study concluded that urban agriculture has the potential of improving the livelihood of urban dwellers. The study therefore recommends the integration of urban agriculture into urban development plan; easy access to land and other production inputs.

The Högdalen urban farm: a real case assessment of sustainability attributes

While urban indoor farming is a fairly new phenomenon, there is a growing interest from producers, authorities and consumers alike. However, many assumptions are made, and expectations held, about urban indoor farming from a sustainability, food production and food provisioning point of view. These assumptions and expectations need to be tested and assessed. This study assessed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a number of social aspects of a newly established indoor urban farm in Stockholm. The farm was the result of a project created by commercial, civil society and municipal actors with the aim to make use of unused urban space, create jobs and produce food. While lettuce grown on the indoor farm emitted more GHG than lettuce cultivated outdoors in Sweden, it was more climate friendly than imported lettuce in our comparison. Furthermore, the indoor farm created value for the actors involved and for the city district, albeit on a small scale. Many of the positive environmental and social features owed to the small scale of the indoor farm and the context in which it developed. Thus, when evaluating production systems like this one, we need to be cautious and refrain from extrapolating the results.

The rural–urban income divide among farm households: the role of off-farm work and farm size

PurposeThe determinants of income of rural and urban farm households, with emphasis on the role of off-farm employment by farm household members and of farm size, are examined using data from the 2016 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) and quantile regression procedure. The implemented quantile regression technique is extended to allow for the decomposition of the income gap between the two groups of farm households. Findings indicate, regardless of the location of the farm, a positive and significant impact of a previous year's participation in off-farm work by household members on the distribution of current household income. Having operated a larger-sized farm in the previous year is shown with a similar effect in the upper range of the income distribution for urban households and with a comparable impact but across the whole income distribution for rural farm households.Design/methodology/approachData from the 2016 ARMS are used in conjunction with quantile regression in order for decomposition of the income gap between the two groups of farm households.FindingsFindings show that urban farm households who in a previous year have participated in off-farm work and operated larger-sized farms tend to earn higher incomes. Results further indicate higher rates of return to education for “urban” farm households in comparison to “rural” farm households, particularly for those with a college education and beyond who are at the lower portion of the income distribution.Research limitations/implicationsTo the extent that the ARMS is an annual cross-sectional data, the temporal impacts of factors that potentially may influence the incomes of farm households in urban and rural areas cannot be measured.Practical implicationsFindings from this research indirectly support previous published research where higher earnings by urban US population were documented in comparison to rural population and where earnings tend to rise as a result of participation in off-farm work and in expanding the size of the farming operation; this is in addition to the procurement of higher education.Social implicationsThe results of a higher rate of return to education for “urban” farm households in comparison to “rural” farm households have important policy implications for policymakers.Originality/valueThis is the first paper in the agricultural economic literature that implements a method of assessing the rural–urban divide across all of the quantiles of income distribution.