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Feeding Sydney: Assessing the Importance of the City’s Peri-urban Farms

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Book cover The Security of Water, Food, Energy and Liveability of Cities

Part of the book series: Water Science and Technology Library ((WSTL,volume 71))

Abstract

Peri-urban agriculture is common to cities worldwide. Large cities depend on the availability of fresh foodstuffs and traditionally these have been supplied competitively by small scale farmers located on the fringes of cities. A peri-urban location gives access to urban markets as well as the opportunity to tap into urban water infrastructure and temporarily idle land. These opportunities mean, however, that peri-urban farmers are displaced by urban expansion. This chapter examines these dynamics through a case study of peri-urban agriculture in Sydney, Australia. The chapter combines four recent studies by the authors to give an appraisal of the relative importance of Sydney basin farmers to the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables to Sydney’s 4.3 million residents. The study finds there is much uncertainty over the future of these farmers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Urban Research Centre, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Phillip O’Neill

  2. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Sarah James

Authors
  1. Phillip O’Neill
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  2. Sarah James
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Phillip O’Neill .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Science & Health, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    Basant Maheshwari

  2. Colleges of Technology and Agricultural Engineering, Maharana Pratap University of Technology and Agriculture, Udaipur, India

    Ramesh Purohit

  3. Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Hector Malano

  4. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    Vijay P. Singh

  5. International Water Management Institute, Hyderabad Office, Andhra Pradesh, India

    Priyanie Amerasinghe

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O’Neill, P., James, S. (2014). Feeding Sydney: Assessing the Importance of the City’s Peri-urban Farms. In: Maheshwari, B., Purohit, R., Malano, H., Singh, V., Amerasinghe, P. (eds) The Security of Water, Food, Energy and Liveability of Cities. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 71. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8878-6_18

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