Academicians, NGOs push benefits of urban farming

21st century farms: UPM agriculture faculty dean Prof Dr Abdul Shukor Juraimi with a vertical farming system the university is working on. Abdul Shukor believes urban agriculture holds great promise in an increasingly urban world.

Urbanisation is on the rise worldwide and a strategy to deal with the necessities of urban living, in particular food and energy usage, is one of the main challenges of the 21st century.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), via its Global Health Observatory noted that this year, urban populations (with a large proportion concentrated in less developed regions of the world) accounted for 54% of the world’s total population, increasing from 34% in 1960.