| Abstract | As urbanization rates around the world continue to climb, especially in developing nations, the
agricultural sector is being left behind. It is necessary to examine the direct and indirect effects
that urbanization has on farmland surrounding mega cities, and how local governments can adapt
to avoid conflict. Urbanization and urban sprawl take over arable farmland in order to start
development of housing, commercial, or recreational land. These new developments also hike up
the land price of local small-scale farms in the area and make owning land an extreme privilege.
The main goal of this paper is to establish the relationship between urbanization and agriculture,
and examine its effects on the sector, via farmland loss, land price, and food costs. Many farms
around major cities have a continuous loss in the number of farms in their vicinity. In addition to
this, the ownership of these agricultural plots is decreasing, as small-scale farms are only able to
rent the land. Results led to a conclusion that urbanization and urban sprawl do in fact have a
serious effect on the agricultural sector that surrounds the city limits, and recommendations such
as the Greenbelt Plan that took effect in 2005 should be implemented in cities suffering from this
issue Through much debate in the early 21st century, the establishment of the Greenbelt Plan, which
protects farmland and greenspace around the city of Toronto acted as a massive success, and one
that can be viewed as a proper mitigation outcome. This implementation of a Greenbelt is a proper
solution in allowing for both agricultural lands, the ecosystem and biodiversity to thrive in the face
of urbanization. Studying the impact of the Greenbelt is especially important in developing
countries, as well as countries currently experiencing problems with urbanization and urban sprawl.
The cases of Turkey and Pakistan experienced much of the same issues Toronto saw in the early
21st century and are now struggling to identify mitigation solutions to stop the spread of arable
farmland into developments such as housing and commercial. The agricultural sector is slowing
decreasing in number of farms as family owned, and small-scale operations are getting more and
more difficult to operate around the world, especially in the vicinity of large cities experiencing a
population boom. |
