may become such a place. Urban agriculture can produce food for cities but also brings significant other benefits, from job creation , to water and landscape management and education.
Promoting urban agriculture implies conserving every inch of available land for food production, and infrastructure and housing need to be densified so we can make more land available for farming within city limits. In this sense, bulldozing the Bertrams Farm would be regressive, as it is important to protect this 0.9ha of farmed land as it can shorten food miles and lower barriers to access to food for inner-city residents. The 0.
Such an institution needs to clearly reflect the principles of not only justice, but of food security and to achieve all of this, has to create a net benefit or value to society. This may be in the form of profit or other benefits. However, food trade through markets has to be very free, to boost the widespread circulation of food. This is the cornerstone of food security.
In light of the above, we need to be very careful in choosing sides in the debate about Bertrams Farm. In such a debate we may easily be bluffed about stories of organic soils, the evil state or other technical matters. However, this debate may well determine how we will in the future deal with urban agriculture in Johannesburg.