Bengaluru urgently needs to prioritise urban agriculture

In June, the question most residents of Bengaluru were asking was: Why are vegetable prices so high? With the prices of vegetables such as onion, potato, and tomato soaring to ridiculous heights, many families were forced to cut down their consumption of these staples.

While fluctuations in weather are a crucial contributing factor to this spike in costs, food prices in Bengaluru are also tied to a larger, less recognised, set of transformations in the city’s agricultural patterns. The expansion of the city into the surrounding rural areas is converting productive agricultural land within and adjacent to the city to settlements, and simultaneously, agriculture is being pushed to forested areas further away from the city.

This displacement of agriculture is not only contributing to increasing food prices, it is also destroying farmer livelihoods and worsening environmental health within the city. To combat these crises, it is necessary to support and protect urban agriculture within the city.

Where is our agricultural land going?

Cropland within and along the fringes of Bengaluru city has steadily been disappearing over the past two decades. A study conducted in 2023 found that between 1973 and 2022, agricultural land within the city declined from occupying 58.59 per cent of the land area to occupying just 32.9 per cent per cent and this was accompanied by an increase in built up area from 3.85 per cent to 55.71 per cent. The trend of converting agriculture to built-up land has continued, as both the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) have been acquiring farmland for industrial and residential developments.

In Devanahalli, the KIADB has been facing farmer protests since 2021 in response to their proposed acquisitions, and in Jakkur, the BDA has announced its intentions earlier this year to acquire 2,000 acre of agricultural land to expand Dr Shivarama Karanth layout.

However, to feed the growing population of the city, large amounts of land are being converted to agriculture in Bengaluru’s rural hinterlands. Researchers from GITAM University found that in Bengaluru Rural district, between 2001 and 2021, the amount of agricultural land increased from 36 per cent of the total land area to 54 per cent. Concomitantly, forests and other natural vegetation decreased from 39 per cent of the total land area to just 5 per cent which is a staggering reduction. Hence, while agricultural land in and around the city is converted to built-up area, this is compensated by the establishment of new farmland in the rural hinterlands, resulting in the loss of natural vegetation in these hinterlands.

Why is this a problem?

Farmers within or along the margins of the city are rapidly losing their livelihoods as their land is being converted to urban development. While some farmers are forced to give up their land to BDA or KIADB projects, others choose to sell as farming is becoming an unsustainable source of livelihood. With the increase in urban development, water sources within the city have become polluted, making them unsuitable for irrigation; land prices have skyrocketed, making it unaffordable for farmers who do not own land to lease it out; and the city government does not prioritise agriculture as it is seen as a ‘rural’ activity, thus leading to a lack of State support for farmers. A study conducted in Bengaluru this year found that approximately 50 per cent of farmers within the city and 46 per cent of farmers in the peri-urban areas around the city have sold their land because they found it difficult to continue farming under such adverse conditions.

The displacement of agriculture to the rural hinterlands is leading to an increase in food prices within the city. This is occurring for two reasons. First, as agriculture moves further from the cities, the supply chains to transport food from the farm to the market increase in length, which then increases the final cost of the produce. Second, as agriculture is displaced from the city, agricultural productivity reduces, which also contributes to increasing costs. This reduction in productivity occurs because the most productive agricultural land is being converted to built-up area, while the new land on which agriculture is being established is less productive.

Urgent need for urban agriculture

Agriculture needs to be encouraged and supported within and along the fringes of Bengaluru, especially in the villages that are being rapidly swallowed up by the city’s sprawl. Integrating agriculture into the city’s urban fabric will bring a number of socio-economic and environmental benefits, not only to our farmers but also to the average resident of the city. Most critically, it protects the livelihoods of farmers who are being forced to give up agriculture and lose their source of sustenance.

Additionally, for the average resident of Bengaluru, it would provide better quality food at lower costs. If food is being grown within the city, it would be fresher and of higher nutritional value by the time it reaches the consumer, as opposed to food that is being transported across large distances. The shortening of the supply chains that transport food from farm to plate also contribute to reducing the cost of the final produce, because there are less middlemen and resources involved in bringing the food to the consumer.

Finally, fostering urban agriculture brings many environmental benefits, not just because it reduces the conversion of forests to agricultural land, but also because it helps improve waste management and maintain ecosystem health within the city.

Urban agriculture can significantly contribute to waste management as organic waste within the city can be reused as fertilisers and wastewater can be repurposed for irrigation. This reduces the dumping of waste within the city and allows for the saving of resources that would be otherwise spent on transporting the waste outside the city. Integrating agriculture can also improve environmental health within the city because it can help restore hydrological systems, conserve topsoil, remove pollutants from both air and water, and reduce heat by increasing the amount of green cover in the city.

Terrace gardens are not the answer

Here, an important caveat is necessary about that the type of farming being advocated for it is traditional agriculture and not rooftop or terrace gardens. Rooftop/terrace gardens in urban areas cannot compensate for traditional agriculture for the following reasons: first, the crops produced in individual houses might be enough to meet the needs of a single family, and not enough to be sold in the market; and second, rooftop gardens are usually only feasible for more affluent families who have the space and the resources to maintain this. Hence, prioritising rooftop gardens will not contribute to augmenting food security for those who require it the most.

Agriculture can be integrated into the city through zoning laws that demarcate certain areas to be agricultural land. In the case of Bengaluru, it would be most beneficial for the government to incentivise agriculture in zones that can also act as a buffer to lakes. This would serve the dual purpose to protecting the city’s lakes and securing a clean source of irrigation close to agricultural areas. Simultaneously, these zoning regulations need to be accompanied by protection for the nearby water sources to ensure they can be used for irrigation. Bhopal has set a precedent for such legislation through a ruling that bans pesticide use within one kilometre of Upper Lake, a major water source for the city.

If farming continues to be displaced from the city and pushed into distant rural areas, farmers in the city will continue to lose their livelihoods, forests and other natural ecosystems around Bengaluru will continue being depleted and destroyed, and due to the elongated supply chains and the shift to less productive land, food prices within the city will continue to increase.

Hence, it is necessary to prevent the expanding city from eating up all the farmland in its path, and take the necessary steps to integrate agriculture into the folds of the city.

(Ananya Rao is a Master of Environmental Science student at Yale School of the Environment. X:@ananyakrao.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.