UrbanFarm 2023: Integrating social, economic and environmental sustainability pillars for sustainable food systems and urban regeneration

Nowadays, with the current and foreseen scenario of urbanization and world population growth, urban agriculture (UA) represents an opportunity and a strategy to improve food production and supply, local economy, social integration, environmental sustainability as well as health conditions. Within this context, UA can reach and integrate the three pillars of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental. For these reasons, UA has become a popular and common urban land use form worldwide in many cities. Indeed, in recent times, UA projects have spread across the world, guided as well as supported by governments and born by community-based initiatives. These projects may have a great variability: they range from low to high technological UA projects or they may have different purposes, being projects with a purely social and educational purpose or instead mainly devoted to food production and environmental services. Therefore, UA brings together multidisciplinary fields and opportunities. To facilitate a wider uptake of innovative policies and instruments for the promotion of the sustainable goals associated with UA, it is fundamental to first create and raise awareness both between institutional stakeholders as well as civil society through innovative and interdisciplinary approaches.