Measuring Food Sustainability and the Benefits of Urban Agriculture

In this book, Measuring Food Sustainability and the Benefits of Urban Agriculture, Dr. Z tackles the complex and often misunderstood topics of food sustainability, urban agriculture and agricultural sustainability. This work provides the data and analysis that were the foundation of his award-winning book Just One Backyard: One Man's Search for Food Sustainability. This book is suitable to be used as a textbook for college courses on sustainability, sustainable agriculture, urban agriculture or sustainable cities. Its usefulness is not restricted to the academic world, as its clear presentation makes it also suitable for community leaders, policymakers and practitioners of urban agriculture. The first chapters of this book provide a lucid review of urban agriculture, including its many forms and issues, and places urban agriculture within the context of environmental, economic and social sustainability. The book then progresses from theory to the applied sciences by presenting metrics that objectively measure the environmental, economic and social sustainability benefits of urban agricultural operations. The final chapters of the book demonstrate how one can apply these metrics to quantitatively measure food sustainability and the beneficial effects of urban agricultural operations by analyzing the results from a landmark 5-year urban food growing study. This book is an important contribution to the quantitative sustainability sciences and should be on the bookshelf of every small-scale agricultural practitioner, community leader, governmental sustainability office and sustainability instructor.