Pathways from practice to policy for Productive Urban Landscapes

This paper aims to disseminate and outline primary research emerging from an international network supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The paper is experimental in that its aim is to direct readers to the networks more extensive website found at: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/utppp.
The network is exploring how policy at various levels has impacted on the implementation of six European urban agriculture projects, led in main by architects, artists or researcher activists. From the perspective and experience of these practitioners, the network aims to identify future pathways towards policy that will support the implementation of urban agriculture (UA) within the context of a productive urban landscape infrastructure.
The network has run a workshop in Amsterdam (Netherlands) and in Brighton (UK) plus a seminar in Sheffield (UK) to explore these questions amongst the network’s core group of nine partners as well as invited guests.
An overarching question is if policy can be developed that becomes embedded as a norm, thus moving beyond the current reliance on interpretations by informed individuals of broad policies focused on sustainability, health, urban regeneration or community engagement? These questions will be contextualised in relation to urban agriculture policy innovations occurring in selected European cities.