Future Agriculture Heritage in Ghent

Urbanization leads to the systematic loss of agriculture. In this part of the world, we seem to have accepted that a high degree of urbanization automatically leads to the decline of local agriculture, and more so, the disappea­rance of local farmers. Especially in the urban fringe, agriculture is economically no longer viable. Existing farmers stop. New ones cannot establish themselves in a land market that does not protect agricultural soils and gears spatial planning to forms of land use other than local agriculture. Can we imagine ways of urbanizing in which equitable and ecological ways of producing food would be an integral part of the landscape and agroecological farmers become recognized members of the urban constituency?  

In this advanced topic we look at the city of Ghent through this lens and try to imagine the kind of infrastructure and future patrimony a city would have to develop to create such conditions. The City of Ghent’s urban food policy, Ghent en Garde, has attracted interna­tional attention, including several prestigious awards. At the same time, the systematic sale of public farmland in the outskirts of Ghent, has alienated new and traditional farmers who are angry about the systematic loss of farmland. While the sale of public farmland has been contested, there is a general lack of imagination and concrete ideas on what a future oriented urban public policy regarding this historical agricultural patrimony could look like. Starting from the results of the ‘Urbanising in Place’ project, participants of this special topic will develop speculative descriptions of new possible investments in urban collective assets that could help to create the circumstances in which agroecological farmers could thrive.