The fight against climate change remains one of the most challenging tasks in our era, many efforts have been made to adapt and mitigate climate change. Adaptations are measures taken to cope with the negative impacts of climate change such as seawalls for coastal cities and mitigations are actions to reduce climate change. In order to mitigate climate change reduction of carbon emissions is essential. In many big cities, urban farming is an innovative idea to look at in the fight against climate change. How can urban farming help, what are some benefits of urban farming in the climate change fight?
The farming industry is one of the major producers of both methane and carbon which involve in global warming, in various ways. Technologies used in the industry to produce foods are great polluters, from start to finish. To bring products from farms usually located far from cities to the stores’ shelves transportation is key. According to an article on transportation and climate change, that sector represents a third of climate-damaging emissions. Urban farming can help reduce transportation emissions. Every day around the world millions of miles have been driven to bring food to our table but at what cost to the environment? Having sustainable farming in cities will be less impactful on the environment since food will grow blocks away and may save trips to the stores.
Besides reducing the impact of transportation, urban farming has more benefits for nature. It will help with the carbon footprint since plants can take carbon dioxide to produce oxygen which is beneficial for the citizens. During the hot season, plants help cool down the temperature. Supplying food from place to place requires a lot of steps and materials especially plastics and cardboard for packaging. Having to go directly to the farm and bringing their own bags helps considerably reduce plastic and cardboard that are made out of trees like. In terms of food preservation in transit and at retail stores, coolers and freezers produce lots of greenhouse gases. Due to climate change, heavy rain will appear, and researchers are looking for ways to use rooftop gardening as a water retaining system to help reduce floods (CBC News).
Urban farming is important as an alternative way in the fight against climate change. It has a tremendous impact directly on how it will help reduce transportation and indirectly it helps produce fewer plastics. Government and authorities should encourage more urban since it is meaningful environmentally and economically. Many efforts should be done in the fight against climate change, urban farming is a promising alternative to living sustainably and probably becoming negative carbon emissions due to the multitude of urban farms.
Resources:
Transportation and Climate Change (biologicaldiversity.org)
Image: https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/cewd/urban_farm/
