The Geographical Journal, Vol. 177, No. 4, December 2011, pp. 311–320, doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2010.00394.

An obsolete dichotomy? Rethinking the

rural–urban interface in terms of food security
and production in the global south geoj_394 311..320

AMY M LERNER* AND HALLIE EAKIN†

*Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1832 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara,
CA 93106-4060, USA
E-mail: alerner@umail.ucsb.edu
†School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, PO Box 875502, Tempe, AZ 85287-5502, USA
E-mail: hallie.eakin@asu.edu
This paper was accepted for publication in November 2010

The global food system is coming under increasing strain in the face of urban population growth.
The recent spike in global food prices (2007–08) provoked consumer protests, and raised questions
about food sovereignty and how and where food will be produced. Concurrently, for the first time
in history the majority of the global population is urban, with the bulk of urban growth occurring
in smaller-tiered cities and urban peripheries, or ‘peri-urban’ areas of the developing world. This
paper discusses the new emerging spaces that incorporate a mosaic of urban and rural worlds, and
reviews the implications of these spaces for livelihoods and food security. We propose a modified
livelihoods framework to evaluate the contexts in which food production persists within broader
processes of landscape and livelihood transformation in peri-urban locations. Where and how food
production persists are central questions for the future of food security in an urbanising world. Our
proposed framework provides directions for future research and highlights the role of policy and
planning in reconciling food production with urban growth.

KEY WORDS: peri-urban, food security, livelihoods, urban agriculture, developing world

livelihoods and reorganising local and regional food

Introduction
systems (Tacoli 2003).

F
or the first time in history, more of the planet’s
inhabitants now reside in urban rather than rural
areas (United Nations Population Fund –
UNFPA 2007). While this reality has been long antici-
pated, the pattern of urban growth is now changing. In
the past urban expansion was concentrated in the
world’s primate cities. Today, however, the process of
urbanisation is far more heterogeneous. According to
the United Nation’s State of the world population
2007 report the bulk of urban expansion is occurring
in smaller and second-tiered cities, especially in the
developing world (UNFPA 2007). As economic activ-
ity decentralises with globalisation and moves outside
of the largest cities to medium and small cities, popu-
lations and livelihood opportunities grow in what
were previously rural areas. These areas, referred to as
‘peri-urban’, encompass a fragmented mixing of
urban and rural worlds, transforming previously rural
In the face of increasing resource scarcity and ever-
increasing demand, the ‘how and where’ of food
production has emerged as a primary concern of
this millennium. Understanding the role of peri-
urbanisation in food provisioning presents a concep-
tual problem, deriving from the inadequacy of
common terms and modes of measurement to
account for the spatial, social, and environmental
changes that are occurring with urban growth. It also
presents a more pragmatic concern associated with
the implications this demographic and landscape
change has for food security, food sovereignty, and
the global interconnectivity of livelihoods and
sustenance.
In the following sections we explore the definitions
and dynamic of the rural–urban interface, illustrate
how rural populations are diversifying their income-
generating activities and lifestyles with enhanced

The Geographical Journal Vol. 177 No. 4, pp. 311–320, 2011 © 2010 The Authors. The Geographical Journal © 2010 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
312
connections to urban areas, and explore what these
processes might mean for food production and secu-
rity. Building from this synthesis of knowledge, we
propose a framework to aid in the analysis of the food
security implications of ‘peri-urbanisation’. We incor-
porate socio-cultural values into a livelihood frame-
work to help inform hypotheses regarding how food
production may be maintained despite various factors
typically associated with its demise. Accumulating
evidence suggests that the tradition of land use in
agriculture, the importance of self-provisioning, and
the food demands of a rising middle class can poten-
tially overcome pressures to abandon production. Our
framework suggests a potential role for direct invest-
ment and involvement by state planners and agricul-
tural ministries in the development of multi-functional
landscapes in peri-urban areas as a means of enhanc-
ing options for achieving household food security.
The new fusion of space
While most analysts, in practice, are cognisant of land
use and demographic gradations around urban
centres, urban and rural spaces have traditionally
been conceptualised in dichotomous terms on the
basis of an assumed clear distinction between ‘rural’
and ‘urban’ land uses and livelihoods. Although this
dichotomy has been challenged by the introduction of
concepts such as ‘suburban’ or ‘edge city’ (Garreau
1991), these terms are not adequate descriptors of the
new sort of space that has been evolving in recent
years in the developing world: the matrix of urban and
rural. These places are sometimes referred to as ‘peri-
urban’, ‘rur-urban’, ‘rural–urban interface’ and ‘urban
fringe’ as we grapple with the nature of a place that
challenges our implicit assumptions about the rela-
tionships between natural resources, economic activi-
ties, and social organisation (Reardon et al. 2007;
Tacoli 2003; Ruiz and Delgado 2008). These emer-
gent hybrid spaces are increasingly important from the
standpoint of policy, planning, development, and, as
we argue here, food security.
There is no universal way to define urban areas,
although often there is some consistency in what indi-
cators are used, such as: administrative criteria
(village/town/city), population size/density, economic
(labour force in non-agricultural activities), functional
nature of urban areas (infrastructure), land in urban
use, and political status (Hugo and Champion 2004,
34, 105). But ‘urban’ by any of these criteria is ulti-
mately a matter of degree, and the definition depends
on some relatively arbitrary threshold to distinguish
urban from non-urban. Often these thresholds vary
between countries. For example many European and
Latin American nations use 2500 inhabitants while
many others use 20 000 inhabitants as cut-off points
for urban areas (Tacoli 2006, 4). In the end the defi-
nition of rural becomes the inverse of urban: a
residual and relative category, implying a less densely
The Geographical Journal Vol. 177 No. 4, pp. 311–320, 2011
An obsolete dichotomy?
settled population, more agriculturally based liveli-
hoods, less infrastructure, and less built-up space. It is
important to note that with these urban and rural
definitions, landscapes and livelihoods are assumed
to logically fit together, in that rural places have agri-
cultural landscapes and natural resource-based liveli-
hoods, whereas urban have the opposite.
The incongruence in the urban and rural definitions
is also a reflection of the diverse geographic contexts
where these places occur. Rural is not only defined
relative to its urban counterpart, but also relative to
the specific political-economic, ecological and
social-cultural context in which such spaces emerge.
What is implied by a decline of 10% in a rural popu-
lation in Zimbabwe versus a similar change in Brazil
or France? Does the control of land by transnational
corporate entities affect food availability, ecological
functions and culture the same way in Argentina as it
does in the United States? The inadequacies in the
characterisations of the space in which livelihoods
and landscapes are used and transformed may cripple
our ability to understand and thus manage space to
achieve one of the most important concerns of social-
ecological sustainability: food security.
Food security is a complex concept, encompassing
food availability, economic and physical access and
biological and cultural utilisation. Food access and
the psychological dimensions of food insecurity such
as anxiety about access are of particular importance
in efforts to achieve food security (Webb et al. 2006).
Given the current and future projections of growth in
peri-urban areas, it is necessary to gain a better under-
standing of the processes that shape these regions and
the consequences for food production and consump-
tions for the residents who live there.
Peri-urban refers to the urban fringe or ‘exurban’
area – not rural but not yet urban. Webster defines
peri-urbanisation as a ‘process in which rural areas
located on the outskirts of established cities become
more urban in character, in physical, economic, and
social terms, often in piecemeal fashion’ (Webster
2002, 5). Peri-urban has also been described as ‘a
transition zone between city and countryside’, but the
nature of this area varies depending on the location and
urbanisation patterns (Adell 1999, 3). Households in
peri-urban regions, particularly in the developing
world, typically pursue livelihoods that depend less on
the natural resource base and more on urban employ-
ment and services. Such households may be pursuing
peri-urban incomes while still residing in what appears
to be largely rural landscapes. For example, estimates
show 35–50% of employment in the rural developing
world comes from off-farm sources (De Janvry and
Sadoulet 2001; Rigg 2006b; Reardon et al. 2007;
Barrett et al. 2001; Bryceson 2002). In Latin America,
scholars have been arguing for a ‘new rurality’ as they
attempt to understand the nature of the countryside
that has surfaced over the past 20 years, including
diversification of livelihoods and influences from inter-
© 2010 The Authors. The Geographical Journal © 2010 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
 An obsolete dichotomy?
national migration (Kay 2008; Appendini and Torres-
Mazuera 2008; Arias 1992; Delgado 1999).
Some of the starkest evidence of the mixing of
urban and rural livelihoods and land uses is in China
where there are distinct patterns of peri-urban growth,
reflecting historical and political circumstances. Since
China implemented market-oriented economic
reforms in 1978, there has been increased decentrali-
sation of urban planning and control, accompanied
by a rise in rural industries, residential urban growth
and the commodification of land (Logan 2002; Ma
2002). The result is a mosaic of high-income com-
muter neighbourhoods, working class households,
and migrant squatters in shanty towns surrounding
large cities (Zhou and Logan 2008). In addition, the
rise of rural industries has transformed the formerly
peasant populations so that they have ‘left the land but
not the village’, reflecting how the officially rural
population has engaged in an urban or quasi-urban
lifestyle (Ma 2002, 1553).
Peri-urban livelihoods and food
production landscapes
Increased levels of urbanisation globally and particu-
larly in the developing world pose two concerns for
food production: the loss of food producers and the
loss of productive land surrounding population
centres. There is a general assumption that land and
food production will be abandoned as populations
shift into other economic activities, most exemplified
in traditional stages theory (Rostow 1960). Some
scholars expect that under certain circumstances
reforestation will occur as agriculture and farmland is
abandoned, supporting the ‘forest transition model’
(Rudel et al. 2002). This theory was tested in central
Mexico and El Salvador among other areas, showing
indeed that forest regeneration occurred as farmland
was abandoned (Klooster 2003; Hecht et al. 2006).
Nevertheless, in both these cases, the cause of the
observed decline in agriculture was not primarily rural
depopulation to cities, but rather a diversification of
livelihoods in the region itself and absorption of inter-
national remittances from family members that had
migrated. In these cases, given the apparent transfor-
mation of farmland to forest, it would be assumed that
food provisioning would increasingly come from
outside sources, purchased with income derived from
off-farm sources.
The growth of secondary cities and the phenom-
enon of peri-urbanisation, however, challenge the
notion that the transition from rural to urban neces-
sarily entails a complete abandonment of food pro-
duction. Because populations on the fringes of urban
areas are often marginalised in terms of access to
public services or employment (Adell 1999), their
ability to meet their food needs through either pro-
duction or markets can be a critical concern for food
security. The dynamics of land use change and rising
© 2010 The Authors. The Geographical Journal © 2010 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
313
land values, the demands on household time and
labour, and changing cultural preferences associated
with urbanisation provide unique challenges to food
production and food access. Conditioned by the avail-
ability of specific resources, households and commu-
nities in peri-urban areas may decide to engage in
food production for a variety of reasons, including
income/caloric need and cultural attachments. In the
section that follows, we draw from the existing empiri-
cal literature to define some of these motivations.
Motivations for the persistence of food production
in peri-urban areas
Over the last several decades, a diversity of case
studies have been conducted around the world on
food production in urban and peri-urban spaces that
together paint a complex picture of the conditions in
which food production persists or is abandoned as
population densities and connectivity to urban econo-
mies increase. Based on these studies we hypothesise
that there are three principle reasons why a household
might continue to produce food despite increasing
opportunity costs of land and labour in peri-urban
areas: first, as a way to mediate risk in livelihood
strategies – including the risk of food insecurity and
hunger; second, as a response to emergent consumer
demand from urban non- producing households; and
third, as a way of meeting cultural needs, identity and
traditions associated with food production within pro-
ducing households.
One of the most basic and straightforward reasons
for the persistence of agriculture and food production
in peri-urban areas is need, both caloric and eco-
nomic. In the face of the potential failure of labour
markets and social services, household food produc-
tion can provide a secure source of food and income
in the absence of non-agricultural alternatives.
Income diversification is fundamental to household
risk management, whether the risks are environmen-
tal, economic, or political (Ellis 2000; Eakin 2006; De
Janvry and Sadoulet 2001). In other words, household
decision-making and their economic activities reflect
their continual weighing of economic returns and risk
in an uncertain world. Research on rural communities
has shown that subsistence production is often moti-
vated as a way of coping with poverty and failed
markets. Rural households may thus be engaged in
‘dual agricultural sectors’: they produce crops for
home consumption, but also combine cash crops with
non-farm activities to ensure their economic survival
(Yunez-Naude and Taylor 2001, 561). Such house-
holds may also be involved in what De Janvry calls
patterns of ‘functional dualism’: households subsidise
their own wage labour with subsistence production,
and thus aid in the perpetuation of low-skilled low-
paid wage employment in regions where manufactur-
ing coexists with smallholder food production (De
Janvry 1981, 39).
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314
For example, farming in and around cities in Africa
has been shown to provide an alternative to more
costly imported foodstuffs in burgeoning urban areas
and also increase food security for low-income house-
holds (Drakakis-Smith 1991; Mkwambisi et al. 2010;
Zezza and Tasciotti 2010). Food production in these
cases serves as a strategy for meeting basic needs of
calories and nutrition. Food production can also be a
strategic source of cash income. In Mexico, traditional
agriculture in the chinampas (floating gardens in the
south of Mexico City) and other peri-urban commu-
nities within Mexico City combines both subsistence
vegetable production with products for local urban
markets, thus providing both cash and non-cash
inputs to household livelihoods (Torres-Lima et al.
1994; Torres-Lima and Rodriguez-Sanchez 2008).
Aquaculture in peri-urban and urban areas in Dhaka
City, Bangladesh supports household livelihoods and
also provides fish to meet urban demand in local
markets (Islam et al. 2004).
The ‘desakota’ zones in Pacific Asia that exist
between urban and rural areas show a continuation of
local food production amidst industrialisation and
exemplify the contrast in lifestyles and livelihoods
(McGee 1991). Many areas of Southeast Asia are now
considered to be less ‘rural’ in the traditional sense,
despite the continued importance of farm activities to
livelihoods and the presence of food production in
and around urban centres. This is especially true in
desakota zones, where the importance of rice produc-
tion persists to feed a nearby urban demand and
provide household income, but a diversity of non-
agricultural activities (because of labour availability)
and the fluid movement of people and goods lead to
a truly hybrid rural–urban space (McGee 1991, 17).
What distinguishes these spaces is the integrated
nature of livelihoods: households typically depend on
a complex mixture of activities, involving income
from both agriculturally based and non-farm sources,
creating a ‘uniqueness of place’ (Rigg 2006a, 82). The
persistence of the desakota system provides increas-
ing evidence that the peri-urban, rural–urban interface
encompasses a multi-functional space that meets both
urban and rural demands, providing subsistence and
income to the benefit of both producers and urban
consumers.
In a similar vein, peri-urban households may well
continue production as a risk management strategy,
particularly as they become more exposed to market
shocks and income instabilities associated with low-
skill wage employment and the fluctuating prices
of commercial food sources. For example, some
research shows that urban and peri-urban residents
engaging in food production do so primarily for home
consumption, to ensure an additional income source
as well as to weather economic crises and high com-
modity prices (Nugent 2000; Drakakis-Smith 1991).
Research has shown that the persistence of agriculture
in urban and peri-urban spaces can have a positive
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An obsolete dichotomy?
impact on household food security. Since the 1970s
urban agriculture has spread in African cities such that
by the 1990s, 70% of urban residents in African cities
were engaged in food production (Bryld 2003).
Studies conducted in Kampala, Uganda show that
urban agriculture is positively associated with nutri-
tional benefits in children (Maxwell et al. 1998). In
addition, Russian households during economic tran-
sition and stress engaged in gardening and food pro-
duction in order to obtain additional income and food
for home consumption (Seeth et al. 1998).
Need, however, cannot explain the diversity of
land-use and production patterns that are emerging
globally. In some cases, it appears that food produc-
tion persists as a result of a reorientation of production
from a focus on subsistence and local (rural) markets
to respond to a growing and dynamic urban demand
(Tacoli 2003). Such a reorientation implies not only
the persistence of production, but change in what is
produced and where outputs are consumed as pro-
ducers respond to emergent and increasingly globa-
lised consumer demands. Preferences for traditional
foods and artisanal preparation can often accompany
rising incomes of professional populations. For
example, outside of Hanoi, Vietnam the commune of
Cat Que has developed a pork-production rural enter-
prise to feed themselves and also the consumers of
Hanoi (CIP 2007). In peri-urban areas surrounding
Mexico City, sheep and nopal cactus production has
increased as a result of the demand for traditional
dishes in the urban tourism sector, as well as for
consumption within local urban and peri-urban areas
(Losada et al. 1998). Criollo or local heirloom varieties
of maize persist in various regions of Mexico to feed
the demand in urban centres for ingredients of tradi-
tional dishes (Keleman and Hellin 2009; Baker 2008;
Palerm 1997).
In these cases, local foods are not the inferior eco-
nomic goods they are often presumed to be in the face
of globalisation. Instead, the presence of an emergent
middle class and outsiders seeking local cuisine serve
to maintain and even enhance production. This
attachment to traditional and cultural food products
creates a potential market for small-scale producers to
sell goods that otherwise would be abandoned with
increasing off-farm income sources and urban growth.
In response to the demand for these products, peri-
urban residents are reinforcing identities as rural ‘pro-
ducers’ while actively engaging in the new cultural
and economic context of peri-urbanisation.
Another reason food production may persist is asso-
ciated with household cultural attachment and iden-
tity, as well as preferences for traditional products
within the producing household. For example, the
reformation of Article 27 of Mexico’s constitution in
1992 authorised the privatisation of community ejido
land, and many scholars predicted a spike in land
sales with the policy reformation (Cornelius and
Myhre 1998). However, research after the passage of
© 2010 The Authors. The Geographical Journal © 2010 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
 An obsolete dichotomy?
land titling shows that ejidatarios did not move rapidly
into land markets; rather land continued to serve as a
means of generating income and sustenance (Haenn
2006; Appendini 2001). After the historical national
land reforms instituted following the Mexican Revo-
lution, land has assumed deep cultural and political
significance, mythologised as a core element of
Mexican nationalism (‘Land and Freedom!’). Together,
the material, political and cultural associations with
land create non-market incentives for land owners to
hold on to land and continue to cultivate, despite
potential monetary gains in selling (Cornelius and
Myhre 1998, 12–13, 19). More specifically, maize
production in Mexico relates to identity: growing
maize is perceived as the obligation of the campesino
and is the ‘tradition’ of what they and their ancestors
have done for generations (Eakin 2006). Maize is also
of great cultural and historical importance of Mexico,
being the centre of its origin and diversity (Smale et al.
2001; Benz 2001; Perales et al. 2003).
Outcomes of the persistence of food production in
peri-urban areas
Parallel to the emergence of peri-urbanisation as a
phenomenon affecting landscapes in the developing
world is a new focus on the potential of agriculture
to provide a diversity of ecosystem and social services
at the landscape scale, termed multifunctional
landscapes or multifunctional agriculture (Otte et al.
2007). In this discourse, agriculture is viewed not as a
source of contamination and nuisance (as it is often
portrayed in the United States (see Bills and Gross
2005) but rather as a means of enhancing sustainabil-
ity through the provisioning of a diversity of non-
market and commodity outputs (Jervell and Jolly
2003). Multifunctional agriculture has been used to
describe the idea of appropriately managed agricul-
tural landscapes enhancing biodiversity, improving
water quality, sequestering carbon, maintaining cul-
tural heritage, and providing a variety of recreational
and economic opportunities as well as food security
(Boody et al. 2005). Small-scale producers are viewed
as key participants in such an agricultural develop-
ment model because of their compatibility with a
diversity of other uses across a landscape and their
ability to efficiently provide value to local consumers
of food and other non-market services (Jervell and
Jolly 2003).
While much of the discussion of multifunctional
agriculture has focused on farming in more industria-
lised contexts (Australia, the USA and Europe), the
emergence of complex peri-urban landscapes in
which farming appears to be persisting suggests that
the concept of multifunctional agriculture has appli-
cation in the developing world as well, where such
landscapes may be emerging organically without any
of the policy support and attention afforded to such
landscapes in contexts such as Western Europe (Potter
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315
and Tilzey 2007). Despite the criticisms aimed at the
term ‘multifunctional agriculture’, including its
limited applicability outside of Europe (Wilson 2007,
4–5), here we use it to represent the natural evolution
of peri-urban areas in the developing world (see
Wilson and Rigg 2003). The persistence of poverty
and food insecurity in the developing world, however,
implies that while agriculture may have a role in pro-
viding a number of social and environmental benefits,
direct food provisioning will remain a core concern.
These naturally occurring multifunctional landscapes
may or may not address local and regional food secu-
rity issues, although often they support food security
strategies at a household level.
Peri-urban food production can also positively
affect ecosystem functioning, by filtering and/or
recycling wastewater (when appropriate), recycling
organic matter, fostering biodiversity, and providing
habitat. Small-scale aquaculture operations in South-
east Asia near urban areas often re-use wastewater
which provides natural treatment through aquatic
organisms (PAPUSSA 2006). Chinampa agriculture in
southern Mexico City fosters plant diversity as well as
water filtration in the floating gardens (Torres-Lima
et al. 1994). Food production systems can also recycle
urban plant waste into mulch, which further decom-
poses and creates organic matter in the soil; for
example, urban food producers in Belem, Brazil use
waste from a local tree as a form of fertiliser (Mad-
aleno 2000). Finally, food production can also capture
water in flood-prone areas, reducing hazard events as
shown in the example of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
(Howorth et al. 2001). These examples demonstrate
that food production in and around urban areas is not
necessarily only an act of food provisioning. Urban
and peri-urban farming can be embedded in complex
and interdependent systems of social, cultural, and
ecological interaction of which we are only beginning
to understand.
Evaluating peri-urban food systems through a
livelihood framework
As described in the previous section, the emerging
evidence from the developing world suggests that the
supposition that ‘urban’ necessarily means ‘limited
food production’ is faulty. To better understand the
contribution and potential of food production in the
changing urban–rural landscape, we need an
approach that not only captures the relationships of
households to their natural resource base as farmers,
residents, labourers or small business owners, but also
accounts for their the day-to-day activities and the
cultural values and meanings they associate with
these activities. In other words, livelihoods are central
to understanding issues of food security in peri-urban
spaces.
Livelihoods are commonly defined as the assets,
capabilities, and activities required to make a living
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316
Figure 1 Modified livelihoods framework
(Chambers and Conway 1991; Scoones 1998; Ellis
2000). The building blocks of livelihoods are the
diverse resources (assets or capitals) that households
draw upon to construct their activities. These are typi-
cally defined as human, financial, natural, social and
physical capitals, and the use and access to these
assets are mediated by the institutional context in
which households realise their daily activities.
Nevertheless, livelihoods are not simply capacities
and material resources. They are the product of
human choices, motivated by specific needs and
imbued with socio-cultural meaning (Bebbington
1999). Thus while access to land, labour and other
productive assets is critical for the maintenance of
food production and for enabling access to food
through various entitlements (Sen 1981), a livelihood
approach would indicate that the persistence of food
production may also be tied to intimate social and
cultural contexts and values which result in the inte-
gration of food production activities into diverse and
increasingly urban economic household profiles. The
challenge is to define an analytical framework that
can help explain the persistence of food production in
areas where land may be increasingly scarce, popu-
lation densities are increasing and in which new wage
opportunities for household labour are emerging.
In Figure 1 we propose a modified livelihood
framework to gain insights into the implications of
peri-urbanisation for food security. Similar to other
livelihood frameworks and in line with food security
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An obsolete dichotomy?
theory, we also emphasise the importance of the insti-
tutional context in defining the assets of households as
well as the specific strategies households may pursue
on the basis of their asset portfolio. The diversity of
populations that reside in the peri-urban environment
implies that within the same geographic space, neigh-
bouring households with distinct livelihood portfolios
may both be engaged in subsistence and small-scale
commercial production, but for very different reasons.
We argue that in peri-urban areas, the choice of a
household to allocate land, labour or other economic
assets to food production (rather than to rely solely on
markets to access to food) is a result of the interplay
not only of assets and institutions, but also biological,
economic and cultural needs (Figure 1).
For example, research in Africa has found that eco-
nomic and caloric needs are the primary motivations
for populations in urban and peri-urban areas to
pursue agriculture (Bryld 2003). In this context, the
opportunity cost of available labour and land remains
low despite increasing resource scarcity brought on
by rising population densities. High urban food prices,
poor access to food markets, and inadequate oppor-
tunities for income drive the need for continued pro-
duction as a means to ensure minimum food security.
However, evidence suggests that caloric and eco-
nomic needs are not sufficient explanations for all
cases of the persistence of agriculture in peri-urban
spaces. Just as economic marginality in these spaces
can be exacerbated by a lack of access to public
© 2010 The Authors. The Geographical Journal © 2010 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
 An obsolete dichotomy?
services and adequate infrastructure, economic
opportunity can be enhanced by relative proximity to
new forms of employment and market demand.
Households of young ‘professionals’ for whom formal
salaries form the dominant source of income, for
example, can exist side-by-side with households
reliant on informal wage labour and subsistence pro-
duction (Appendini and De Luca 2006; Eakin and
Appendini 2008). While ensuring food availability
may drive agricultural production in the latter case,
production in households with professional salaries is
likely to be motivated by cultural attitudes, prefer-
ences and needs that privilege agricultural activities
and traditional foods (Appendini et al. 2003). Cultural
needs reflect the idea that food production is a choice;
particularly because off-farm income sources allow
households to purchase food instead of solely relying
on food production for meeting economic and/or
nutrition needs.
The socio-cultural motivation for food production is
often a driving force in peri-urban areas when outside
employment allows households to engage in commer-
cial food markets. This cultural significance can be
manifested in households favouring local, traditional
varieties of crops, and also in their pursuing food
production in the face of adverse circumstances (i.e.
environmental conditions, high opportunity costs,
pest problems and time constraints). Thus, in our
modified livelihoods framework, socio-cultural values
affect how households utilise their assets, and these
values interact with both economic need and urban
demand. For example, given non-agricultural employ-
ment a household member might choose to engage in
food production, motivated by the tradition and
values associated with agricultural production. In this
case, food production actually serves as a preferred
allocation of labour and resources: households sink
money into production but prefer the goods they
produce (for variety and freshness) and the activity of
engaging in food production.
Needs, whether physiological, economic or social-
cultural, are expressed through the activities of house-
hold members, and these activities depend on the
availability of a diversity of assets and entitlements.
While there is limited empirical exploration of this
theme, land tenure, water rights and land markets are
critical institutional factors that are likely to affect the
viability of food production in these peri-urban spaces
(Tacoli 2003). For example, women in peri-urban
areas of Ibadan, Nigeria consider access to land and
water as fundamental for household livelihood sus-
tainability through food production, although urban
expansion and lack of government initiative has made
these resources more difficult to obtain (Jaiyebo
2003).
Where cultural and economic needs combine with
the availability of land, water and farming knowledge,
peri-urban spaces become vibrant and dynamic
places for local food production and marketing. Yet
© 2010 The Authors. The Geographical Journal © 2010 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
317
even in the absence of land or labour for farming,
available income can facilitate the expression of cul-
tural and social needs in the form of demand for fresh
or artisan foods (Allen et al. 2003). The physical
and/or social proximity to larger metropolitan regions
further stimulates demand, such that the consumption
patterns by peri-urban professionals and neighbouring
urban populations reinforce the development of arti-
sanal food markets. However even within these
spaces, where economic/caloric needs combine with
exogenous shocks and limited access to markets, or to
land and other productive resources, hunger and food
insecurity are likely to be chronic problems.
The proposed framework highlights the potential
problems that could emerge from the mis-
conceptualisation of peri-urban space, and the
development of associated policy and planning instru-
ments, in ways that do not account for the complexity
of needs and motivations associated with continued
food production. Throughout the developing world,
scholars are analyzing peri-urban areas in an attempt
to define ‘mixed’ rural–urban interfaces, and to con-
struct a new rurality which undermines the notion of
rural livelihoods being separate from urban. It seems
that we are grappling with a ‘hybrid’ space, which is
not a stage along a trajectory of inevitable rural–urban
transition, but rather a space within itself, encompass-
ing dynamic interactions between populations, the
landscapes they inhabit, and their associated land
uses and livelihoods. These landscapes are multi-
functional by default, mixing hybrid land uses and
livelihoods, and supporting vibrant flows of agricul-
tural goods and ecological services both within peri-
urban zones and between peri-urban and urban core
areas, but also potentially among more traditional
rural communities.
The bulk of the examples presented here concern-
ing the motivations, outcomes, and significance of
peri-urban food production highlight the decisions of
households and individuals to pursue food provision-
ing activities. What is less understood, however, is the
role of institutions and the way that they can facilitate
these activities that are naturally occurring in response
to economic and socio-cultural needs. This is espe-
cially important because peri-urban areas are often a
‘grey zone’ (McGee 1991, 17) without state manage-
ment or are exposed mismatched policies that do not
incorporate both urban and rural needs into planning
(Eakin et al. 2010; Allen 2003). Further research is
needed to recommend ways that institutions can assist
in resource availability in peri-urban areas (through
land tenure and water rights), and the commercialisa-
tion and markets of local goods that bring together
producers and consumers.
In summary, it is the interaction of risk mitigation,
income and consumption needs, available assets and
access to resources, and emergent cultural demands
that define households’ land use and livelihood
choices. These individual choices in the aggregate lead
The Geographical Journal Vol. 177 No. 4, pp. 311–320, 2011
318
to distinct patterns of food provisioning in peri-urban
spaces: the needs and traditions of food-producing
households and the preferences of an emerging middle
class make these areas unique. The presence of a
nearby demand with low transaction costs provides a
market for local foods that otherwise would not exist if
greater distances had to be travelled in order to sell
goods. The modified livelihood framework we present
emphasises that socio-cultural values are mediated by
the demand from urban (or non-farm) incomes, which
create unique social and economic relationships in the
peri-urban space. Consequently, peri-urban areas
often keep the imprint from their agricultural past as
they are woven into a larger metropolis.
Conclusions
The reality of urbanisation and the growing urgency of
anticipating the food needs of the world’s burgeoning
population call for innovation and creativity in plan-
ning for enhanced food security. The historic division
of urban and rural no longer characterises the diversity
of spaces in which food provisioning activities, urban
forms, culture and livelihoods coexist. The growing
empirical literature on food provisioning in and
around urban populations in the developing world
suggests that resource policy and planning that does
not account for the new reality of peri-urban food
production may result in lost opportunities for
enhancing food security. While the benefits of urban
agriculture globally are beginning to be documented,
there is little understanding of the complex interaction
of motivations, needs, assets and opportunities that
enable the persistence of food production in and
around urban centres. If we continue to judge ‘urban-
ness’ as reference to land-cover change and popula-
tion density, peri-urban areas might still be considered
rural. However, these areas also incorporate signifi-
cant changes in lifestyle and livelihood that are not
necessarily reflected in the structure of the natural and
physical environment. In visually ‘rural’ landscapes,
the footprint of industry nearby is reflected in polluted
groundwater and the profile of household incomes.
The fusion of livelihoods is seen along apparently
urban streets, where livestock and gardens occupy
back patios, and the younger generations commute to
the locations of their professional careers.
In this hybrid landscape, land use and livelihood
change are in constant tension. However, we argue
that it is in these spaces where there is also a potential
to address the challenges of sustaining food security,
environmental integrity and economic growth. With
the bulk of urban population growth occurring in
small and medium cities and peri-urban areas of the
developing world, these areas and the populations
residing in them should become a focus of research
and policy initiatives on sustainable food provisioning
and production. We have aimed to capture both the
complexity and potential of peri-urban food produc-
The Geographical Journal Vol. 177 No. 4, pp. 311–320, 2011
An obsolete dichotomy?
tion in a framework for structuring further research.
This framework can provide an initial step in identi-
fying some of the important attributes, relationships,
and processes at play in these emergent regions.
On the research agenda are numerous questions
concerning the motivations, extent and contribution
of these areas to local food security: what needs and
values are associated with the persistence of produc-
tion? How do the institutions governing resource use
and access affect the contribution of peri-urban
spaces to food demand? Can the contribution of these
areas to local food provisioning be quantified? At what
point do households abandon food production and
associated cultural values and rely solely on food
purchased? When and under what circumstances do
markets emerge to express a demand for traditional
food items? The combination of household economic
needs and cultural values also interact with larger
political decisions, processes of environmental
change, and the national economic context. How do
all of these factors influence household decisions and,
in turn, impact the local food system?
As these questions are explored in the coming
decade, there is a more immediate need to rethink the
way we approach landscape and urban planning. Seg-
menting the landscape into urban and rural upholds a
dichotomy that is increasingly obsolete. In many parts
of the developing world, peri-urban landscapes reflect
an organic spatial heterogeneity and multi-
functionality that could be an untapped resource. In
these spaces, there are unexplored opportunities for
enhancing regional food security and, through the
provision of a diversity of ecosystem services, envi-
ronmental sustainability.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous
reviewers for their feedback on this article. The
research on which this article is based is partially
funded by an Inter-American Foundation Grassroots
Dissertation Fellowship to A. M. Lerner, and a
National Science Foundation Human and Social
Dynamics Grant (BCS 0826871) to H. Eakin. All opin-
ions and interpretations expressed in this article
pertain to the authors and not to the research
sponsors.
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