Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Title: | Does Urban Agriculture Help Prevent Malnutrition? Evidence from Kampala |
Authors: | Maxwell, Daniel G.![]() Levin, Carol Csete, Joanne |
Year: | 1998 |
Periodical: | Food Policy |
Volume: | 23 |
Issue: | 5 |
Period: | October |
Pages: | 411-424 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Uganda |
Subjects: | child nutrition urban agriculture Health and Nutrition Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Urbanization and Migration |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-9192(98)00047-5 |
Abstract: | Despite the sharp decline in economic fortunes, widespread malnutrition was not observed in Kampala, Uganda, in the 1980s. Throughout the period, urban residents developed increasingly diversified means of access to food. The most important of these was urban semisubsistence farming. Though not a new practice, urban agriculture was widely believed to have helped mitigate the impact of the economic crisis and structural adjustment, and prevent a sharp decline in the nutritional status of the urban population. Similar claims have been made about urban agriculture in other African cities. This paper presents data to test the relationship between urban agriculture and nutrition. It is based on a survey carried out in Kampala in 1993 among 360 urban households. The paper analyses the determinants of the nutritional status of children under five in Kampala, where roughly one third of all households in the sample engage in some form of urban agriculture. When controlling for other individual child, maternal, and household characteristics, these data indicate that urban agriculture has a positive, significant association with higher nutritional status of children, particularly height for age. The implications of these results for urban food and nutrition policy and urban management are discussed. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. |