Urban Horticulture: Necessity of the Future

The worldwide urban population will double in 30 years, leading to challenges in food and nutritional security as well as environmental problems. The urban population will increase more in developing countries as a result of immigration from rural areas, since people flock to the cities with the expectation of better quality of life there. Looking to accelerated growth in population of cities and small towns, it is expected that by 2050 more than 60 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Besides the growing demand for food, there will also be a rapid increase of poverty, unemployment, hunger, and malnutrition in the urban and peri-urban environment, since only 18 percent of the Earth’s surface is cultivable or capable of growing plants, while the rest is occupied by seas, mountains, and ice. The little area capable of growing plants (agriculture, horticulture, and green conservation) is highly competed for by housing, industrial and road constructions, and incessant environmental disasters like bush burning, flooding, deforestation, and settlement expansion due to urbanization. The practice of urban horticultural gardening in third world cities to boost food and ornamental plants production, provide job opportunities, mitigate environmental pollution, and promote green space development may bridge these gaps.