Lowering the heat, feeding citizens: scaling up a circular model for urban agriculture in Depok City, Indonesia

Challenges

The key challenges faced in Depok City include the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, driven by urbanisation that replaces natural land cover with heat-absorbing surfaces. This effect is causing cities to heat up at a rate twice the global average, potentially leading to a four °C temperature increase by the end of the century. Additionally, Indonesia produces 24-48 million tonnes of food waste annually, resulting in significant economic losses. Rapid urbanisation is also pressuring the urban food supply in Depok, as agricultural land decreases and the city becomes more dependent on food from other regions. To address these challenges, promoting urban and peri-urban agriculture, especially circular urban agriculture models, is a solution to enhance food security and reduce the UHI effect.

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Results by 2023

• Ecological urban farming demonstration plots were established in 6 areas. 156 urban farmers participated in the programme, the majority of whom were over 35 years old (70%) and female (72%). The farmers were trained in cultivation, processing and land preparation, including clearing the land to the required size.  
• The urban farming groups have been trained in ecological topics such as compost making (from everyday organic materials such as fruit peels, vegetable waste, dry leaves, etc.), planting (fruit and vegetables), CO2 uptake measurements, micro-weather observations and now have their own nursery where they can produce and sell seedlings in addition to selling and distributing their fresh produce.  
• Automatic and manual weather measurement techniques have been introduced: The automatic method uses an automatic weather station (AWS) instrument (6 have been installed) whose results can be monitored in real time through a website; the manual method was implemented by the farmers who recorded the elements of daily rainfall (mm/day), air temperature (°C) and relative humidity (%).  
• An urban agriculture dashboard is being developed, identifying 205 actors: 4 food donation activities, food waste processing, healthy food SMEs, orphanage sites as potential food donation sites.  
• The urban farming community was linked to Biomagg, a small food waste processing company, which will buy their compost.  
• Regular consultations were held with the local government of Depok to ensure they remained motivated and aligned with the programme, and in December 2023, Bappeda Depok signed an agreement with our partner PIB for their commitment to include urban agriculture as one of their priorities in their programme.  
• Rikolto conducted two learning sessions: one on "Strengthening the resilience of rural-urban food systems amidst El-Nino" and one with the local governments of Denpasar, Bandung, Depok and Solo to share their progress in improving the food system in their area.

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Evidence shows that urban farming activities in Depok have impacted the DTR (diurnal temperature range). This value was analysed by comparing the urban farming area with the area of the IPB University Teaching and Research Meteorological Station (SMPR). In the urban farming area, there was a change from open land to vegetated land, while in the SMPR, it remains open land. Comparison with observations in the areas with no land cover change was used to determine changes in DTR due to land cover change. The results of observations of five urban agricultural sites with crops such as chillies, tomatoes, aubergines, water spinach, long beans, lettuce, and other vegetables during the observation period showed an average decrease in DTR of about 0.16 ± 0.07°C. Vegetated surfaces increase the heat storage capacity on the surface so that the rate of heat release to the air can also be reduced, resulting in an increase in minimum temperature and a decrease in maximum temperature.

In 2024, Rikolto and partners will continue capacity building on urban agriculture, emissions calculation, and business development to ensure the sustainability of urban agriculture.