Brazil: Urban and Periurban Agriculture

United Nations Environmental Program

With the aim of mapping the multiple benefits provided by sustainable urban and peri-urban agriculture, two initial studies in the São Paulo metropolis (Brazil) were launched in the years 2020 and 2021. The first study pointed out that it is possible to produce fresh and healthy food within metropolitan areas, offering provisioning services to its 21mi habitants. The second study explored how this production could maintain and enhance ecosystem services such as heat and flood mitigation, and water and erosion regulation.

By transitioning unproductive pasture lands into sustainable agriculture, it would be possible to reach 2030 with almost the same levels of ecosystem services provision as it was assessed for 2019, cushioning the impacts of projected urban expansion in the metropolis. Based on dialogues with the Ministry of Citizenship, the work is aiming to build a guideline for the development and evaluation of UPA agendas at the municipal level.

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