Urbanising the Agroecological Reproduction of Soil Fertility

Although cities are highly dependent on the constant supply of food, urbanisation processes usually herald the end of local food production. Current urbanisation processes go hand in hand with a global food regime, actively contributing to the substitution of local food production. Numerous social and environmental excesses of the global food regime are challenging the existing urbanisation model in which agricultural rationales are absent. The starting point of this research is that a different, more sustainable food system also requires a different urbanisation model (and vice versa). This PhD examines how urbanisation processes could support local, agroecological food production. The search for such an “agroecological urbanism” departs at farm level, embedded in action research in an existing farming community in Flanders. From this, the PhD derives its thematic focus on one of the central issues in agroecological agriculture: how to compensate for a loss of soil fertility within the ecological boundaries of agroecosystems? The PhD explores what it means to understand agroecological soil fertility reproduction not as separate from urbanisation (as an individual responsibility of the farmer) but rather as an object of collective, urban organisation (the “urbanisation” of soil fertility reproduction). This is elaborated empirically in two ways. A critical systematisation of agroecological soil fertility reproduction practices demonstrates the disabling nature of current urbanisation processes and identifies pathways for an urbanism that does cater for these practices. An in-depth analysis of public landownership and public land transactions then explores the need and potential of public land management as part of an agroecological urbanism. The research results in a repoliticisation of soil fertility reproduction as both an agricultural and an urban issue, the elaboration of soil care as part of an agroecological urbanism and (re)new(d) attention to the crucial importance of land policy for for enabling agroecological soil care.