Urban soil management of marginalized lands: recognizant of history

Urban agriculture (UA) forms a crucial part of the urban food chain in many cities in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). As urbanization continues, it becomes increasingly important to acknowledge the role of UA within the socioeconomic fabric of the city, and build inclusive business models to empower its practitioners. A crucial constraint for this is that various stakeholders in UA often take conflicting stances on the phenomenon. Some see it as an illegal, unsustainable practice leading to pollution and soil degradation. Others claim that it sustainably increases food security and offers employment opportunities, particularly for the urban poor. This leads to a conflict in perception and value sets between the various stakeholders involved in UA, which inhibits the further development of UA into a sustainable, more inclusive business. Recently we also see an emerging view that UA can help address the issue of climate change by sustainable management of soil carbon stocks in addition to providing food and other services. An element that is mostly ignored in the discussion surrounding UA is land-use history and its effect on composition and nutrient status of UA soils, and with it the potential for sustaining UA and mitigating climate change. We propose that the sustainability of UA can only be understood within the context of land-use practices during and before UA. Only by understanding and acknowledging this context can UA be part of inclusive business practices in the urban environment. Here we review scientific literature on UA sites in SSA to unravel the extent of the knowledge gap in this area, and derive a guiding framework to integrate land-use history effects in the discussion on UA within the context of developing inclusive business models for its practitioners