The multifunctionality of urban agriculture projects in Brussels

In Brussels, as in other cities, urban agriculture projects place a more or less strong emphasis on food production but also develop other functions in social, health, training, education, environment or circular economy sectors. Until recently, in Brussels, these functions were barely recognized and received little support from the government. Nonetheless they represent an important part of many projects and may have a significant societal impact. In order to help current urban agriculture projects, and to support the administrations to co-create a fairer food policy, we studied a diverse range of urban market gardening initiatives: we interviewed 14 projects and carried out two workshops bringing together field actors and administrations. We identified 110 functions implemented by urban agriculture projects in Brussels, grouped these into 12 function groups and set up a tool to create their multifunctionality profile. The analysis of this profile compared to the business model of the project allows us to propose the hypothesis that the more the projects depend financially on food production, the less they seem inclined to develop a multitude of functions, and that the projects whose source of income is mixed (part from production and part from subsidies and external financial support) can afford to explore more functions. This work opens a new dialogue between food producers and different government administrations as it highlights the action urban agriculture can have on a very broad range of societal functions besides mere production.