Meet Dr Silvio Caputo

The UK is a nation of gardeners. Some surveys suggest that more than 40% of the UK population likes gardening yet we are becoming increasingly disconnected from where our food originates. Dr Silvio Caputo, an architect based in the Kent School of Architecture, Design and Planning and co-lead for the Centre for the Sustainable Built Environment, has extensively researched how reconnecting with our food through urban farming – the practice of cultivating crops and livestock in urban environments – can help us, our food systems, and the planet.

Why is studying our relationship with food and agriculture important to you? 

While in the past food was something that was part of our lives because we grew it next to where we were living, with the urban population growing and the size of cities expanding, we’ve lost that connection with the countryside and what grows there. Instead, we identify food with supermarkets. This is a big problem because we’ve lost the culture of food and a connection with what is good for us. We’ve also lost touch with the seasonality of food. Ultra-processed food rules and we cannot distinguish between what is good because it is healthy and what is good because we are addicted to it.  

What role does urban farming play in our food systems today? 

One of the questions I’m often asked is why urban agriculture? To answer that, I’d ask why not urban agriculture? Globalisation didn’t exist in the past, so historically, as a city, you had to be partially self-sufficient and the relationship with what grows out of the city was very strong. We’ve lost that connection and that won’t come back. Yet there have been periods, even in recent history, where urban agriculture has worked as a buffer, particularly in times of crisis. During the covid-19 pandemic, many community gardens and farms supplied soup kitchens. And we know that in World War II, food was produced in Hyde Park or Regent’s Park in London, contributing 10% of the food consumed nationwide, according to official estimates. So, it is a way to both educate people about the importance of food and address contingencies.  

Is our disconnect from agriculture particular to the UK? 

Absolutely not. I’ve been to Brazil and other Latin American countries where there’s still a strong rural component in the society but nationally you find rates of obesity that are very high, and that is related to another factor that is very important – cheap food, which is often unhealthy. There are urban areas known as food deserts, not only in Brazil and other countries but also here in the UK – neighbourhoods where it’s difficult to find fresh produce and where there’s a high percentage of fast food retailers. You will not solve the problem of food supply with urban agriculture but by taking food closer to the point of consumption, it does help educate people about the food cycle and what it takes to grow our food.

With more extreme weather events affecting crop yields worldwide, will more people be willing to embrace urban agriculture in the future?  

I think so. We will not be able to grow the quantity of food in cities we need to be self-sufficient, but psychologically, socially and also practically, it can help make the food system more equitable. And we shouldn’t forget that at a time in which urban agriculture is helping alleviate some of the environmental problems we have. For example, it helps increase the permeable surface area in cities, retain water when it rains too much, and mitigate heat waves.  

You’ve been involved in research where the headline takeaway is that urban agriculture can have a carbon footprint six times that of traditional agriculture. Is this always the case?  

This was a European research project involving five countries which sought to measure the environmental impact and social benefits of urban agriculture. To measure the environmental impact of urban agriculture we used a life cycle analysis, collecting data on food production and on resource consumption across 70 case studies and segmented them according to different types of food growing in cities. We found that on average, the carbon footprint was higher than that of conventional agriculture but more than 20% of the case studies were actually performing better than conventional agriculture.   

The case studies that were more carbon intensive were community gardens, and for a very good reason. The infrastructure that these community gardens use is designed to host social activities so they have a lot of material and low production of food because their focus is on connecting people with food. Within the same project, we carried out a pilot study on a community garden in London and we used a social return on investment tool, with which we calculated that for one sterling pound of expenditure there were three pounds of return on investment. This is because gardening improved the mental wellbeing of volunteers, saving the National Health Service the cost of doctors and medications. So urban agriculture does not only provide food and health through healthy food, but it also provides social benefits that are incredibly important to society. 

Your current project expands on the idea of agriculture as a means to maintain mental wellbeing. Can you tell us more about this? 

GreenME is a Horizon Europe-funded project about nature-based therapies, or non-medical therapies for physical and mental wellbeing. These are part of the UK’s social prescribing model where your GP can refer you to groups that will offer sessions based on socialising and contact with nature. There is evidence of the beneficial effect of nature to improve mental wellbeing.  

My part in the project is to examine in case studies, through surveys and spatial analysis, the distribution of green space and blue space where disadvantaged groups live, and how these perceive or self-assess their reaction to contact with nature or to lack of contact with nature.  

What’s your view on the role of technology in urban agriculture? 

I actually wrote a book about how soil-less technologies are being integrated into community projects and small and sustainable enterprises. Across Europe, you’ll find that there are lots of community gardens that use these technologies and self-build hydroponic and aquaponic units or mushroom farms. I think that the integration of these technologies within urban agriculture is very important. Hydroponics are space efficient and very productive. Within the perspective of rewilding parts of the countryside to restore precious ecological habitats, hydroponics can help strike the right balance between the land that we use to grow food and the land that we give back to nature.  

Technology can also help us minimise resource consumption. For example, precision agriculture, which uses satellite imagery and drones, helps us understand where water and nutrient is needed, so you don’t blanket cover hectares with it. However, it is critical that food production technologies are used to support the main aim to grow food while regenerating the soil. To me, regenerative agriculture is absolutely important and everything should be organised to that end. 

Do you think that this technology, combined with urban farms, has the potential to reduce food waste?  

We go back to where we started. Why urban farming? One of the reasons why urban farming is important is that cities produce waste food, water, heat, land and organic substances. So if we can harness all this waste and turn it into a resource, then we have a very, very low impact food production. We can harvest lots of rain, use areas that are often wasted, such as rooftops, and use organic waste as nutrient. Essentially, we should look at the city as an organism with its own metabolism.  

Dr Silvio Caputo has long-standing experience as a practitioner and researcher. His research area is highly interdisciplinary and multi-scalar (from buildings to cities), focusing on nature-based solutions for cities, especially in the areas of urban farming, building-integrated urban farming, care farming and sustainable food planning. This research aligns with Kent’s mission to become a Right to Food university. He has published in high impact journals and authored / co-authored several books. Silvio is open to being featured in print, on TV and the radio.