PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2012, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (6): 783-791.doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2012.06.015

• Original Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Food Security-oriented Urban Agriculture Development Typologies: A Case Study of Vegetable Production in Peri-urban Beijing

DU Shanshan1,2, CAI Jianming1, GUO Hua1,2, FAN Ziwen3   

  1. 1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;

    2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;

    3. Beijing RuralWorking Commission, Beijing 100053, China
  • Received:2011-09-01 Revised:2011-10-01 Online:2012-06-25 Published:2012-06-25

Abstract: With the improvement of people's living standards and enhancement of public awareness, people's concerns and demands for a more healthy life are becoming increasingly stronger. Hence, stimulated by frequent media reports on food safety problems and bad cases in recent years, nowadays food security issue has become the hottest topic in society, particularly about vegetable and milk products. Urban agriculture, with its great advantage of "shorter-distance supply and less intervention chains", should be an important channel for urban residents in their vegetable supply and play a key role in improving their vegetable safety. Taking Beijing as a case, this paper conducted an analysis and study on the typologies of vegetable production in peri-urban Beijing in its pursuit of food security driven by urban agriculture development. This paper firstly analyzed the supply sources of fresh vegetables in Beijing, and identified the various disadvantages of "longer-distance supply with more involving chains" in providing high quality vegetable products compared with those from urban agriculture. Then this paper summarized 5 typical urban agricultural development models in vegetable production in peri-urban Beijing, including their background, operation and management characteristics. Based on these studies, this paper lastly put forward some policy-oriented protection mechanisms for promoting the development of urban agriculture.

Key words: Beijing, development model, protection mechanism, urban agriculture, vegetable safety