Feeding Sydney : assessing the importance of the city's peri-urban farms

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.