Can Farmers Earn Money by Farming in Or Near Cities?

As you probably know, most farms are found in rural areas, far away from big cities. However, when food is grown near cities, it can make cities more sustainable and prepared for the future. Moreover, it even offers business options for farmers in the outskirts of the cities as well as for newcomers and start-ups producing food in the city centers. Short food-supply chains and well-known origin are only some of the benefits. New technologies like aquaponics can go hand in hand with traditional farms. Both complement each other and enhance local food production. Nevertheless, local food production needs to be economically viable to be sustainable and prosper in the end. This raises the questions: Is it possible to run a successful and sustainable farm near—or even within—a city?

they compete with farmers for land. Moreover, much of the farmland is not owned by the farmers, but leased.

CHALLENGE: ECONOMIES OF SCALE
Competition with larger farms can be a big problem for small farmers. Imagine you are a wheat farmer. When summer comes and your grain is mature, you are happy to use your harvester to reap the fruits of your work. Because your farm is small, you can a ord only a small harvester. As a consequence, the harvest takes you quite a long time, and your machine needs a lot of fuel. This means that you will have high production costs.

PRODUCTION COSTS
Amount of money that a farmer has to pay in order to buy all the necessary supplies to grow food.
Meanwhile, the farm next door is twice as large as yours. That farm is also selling wheat, but their machines are larger, more powerful and fuel-e cient ( Figure ). The larger farm needs less time for harvesting and therefore saves money on fuel and working time. The larger farm can also get higher prices per unit when selling its products, because they can o er larger amounts. They also spend less on farming supplies, like seeds and fertilizer, because they can buy supplies in bulk. This financial di erence between large and small businesses is called economy of scale, and it means that larger farms or companies can have financial

ECONOMY OF SCALE
Cost benefits that can be achieved due to the size of a company. Large companies can save more money and become more cost-e cient than small companies can. benefits due to their size [ ].
Because farming is a very competitive business, many farmers try to enlarge their farms to take advantage of economies of scale. They also try to be as e cient as possible to save costs. When customers pay low prices for food, those prices do not always cover all the costs that farmers spend to produce food. Small farms must often shut down for this reason.

CHALLENGE: PRICE PRESSURE
All farmers are under pressure to grow crops cheaply, which is known as price pressure [ ]. For example, have you ever wondered why you can buy blueberries in winter, even though they only grow during the summer in many climates? In winter, blueberries must be transported long distances from South America or South Africa, to supermarket shelves across the world. The long transport routes are harmful for the environment, and the growing practices can be less environmentally friendly in certain countries. The growing practices required for farmers in Europe have very high standards compared to the rest of the world. This is good for the quality of the products, the environment, and the working conditions of the growers. But high standards also mean higher production costs. Countries that do not worry as much about protecting the environment or paying fair wages to farm workers can sell their food at lower prices-and some stores choose their products mainly based on prices. Therefore, farmers in places like Europe, where standards are high and sustainability plays SUSTAINABLE Describes food production that does not harm the environment, and in which the workers have good working conditions and are paid a fair wage.
a key role, sometimes face di culties selling their products because other countries can produce food more cheaply.

HOW DO FARMERS NEAR CITIES COPE?
Researchers found out, that farms have developed three di erent ways (cost leadership, di erentiation and diversification) to cope with low prices. The first way is called "cost leadership." In order to cope with the price pressure, farmers try to increase the size of their farm even more. Their farms grow and o er only one or very few di erent products, to make sure that they are able to o er large amounts. Simultaneously, these farms try to improve and optimize their farm organization and activities as much as possible. In order to save money. This business strategy is not applicable for every farm in every region.

BUSINESS STRATEGY
Measures undertaken to achieve the desired development of the business and secure its stability.
Especially when farmland is rare, like in cities, this strategy does not work anymore.
Farmers along the fringes of cities use two main strategies to cope with the many challenges they face: di erentiation and diversification. Both strategies build on an important location advantage that these

LOCATION ADVANTAGE
Imagine you want to sell lemonade. You could choose a stand opposite a school or along a lonely hiking trail. Surely the school, would be more favorable.
farmers have-being close to lots people, the city dwellers! If farmers can adjust their businesses to the needs and wishes of city dwellers, they will not be as a ected by global food prices. This can be good for both the farmers and the consumers. When farmers and customers can directly interact with each other and develop a relationship, and the customers begin to like and trust the famers and their products, then the price of the food is no longer the only reason the customers purchase it. [ , ]. But how can farmers di erentiate their farms from others? And how can they build good relationships with their customers? The quality of their products can be the starting point. Some vegetable species have a great taste, but they need more time to grow and the yield is smaller compared to more frequently grown species. This is especially the case for tomatoes and strawberries (Figure ). If small farmers grow unique, good-tasting fruits and vegetables, they will have an advantage over large farmers that choose the fast-growing but less tasty varieties.

Figure
To compete with larger farms, small farms can try the strategy of di erentiation, meaning they can o er unique or better quality fruits and vegetables than larger farms can.
Another way for farmers to di erentiate is to farm less common or exotic breeds of livestock (animals). Ostriches are a good example of an exotic animal that can be raised on a farm. Did you know that one ostrich egg is the size of chicken eggs? Quails lay very small eggs. To replace a chicken egg, you need quail eggs. This is a clear example how exciting and diverse food can be! Farmers can also di erentiate by providing superior living conditions for their animals. Chickens running across green meadows and warming their feathers in the sun are beautiful to look at and are a real selling point. However, building nice living spaces like stables is expensive, and farmers cannot keep as many animals if they give their animals more space. This means production becomes more expensive for these farmers, which is why they have to charge more for their products.
However, small farmers often sell directly to customers, either in small shops on the farms or at farmers' markets, so the food-supply chain is shorter [ ]. A food-supply chain describes the path of a

FOOD-SUPPLY CHAIN
Describes the path of a product from production through processing to the consumer. The more intermediate stops a product makes from the farm to the dining table, the longer the food-supply chain. product, from production on farms through purchase by customers. The more partners that are involved in food-supply chains (farmers, traders, processers, transport companies, packaging, wholesalers, supermarkets, consumers, etc.) the less money from the sales price ends up in the farmer's pocket (Figure ). Therefore, the farmer makes less money the longer the food-supply chain becomes. Consequently, kids.frontiersin.org March | Volume | Article | farmers can earn more money when they sell directly to customers, although those farmers have higher costs for production, processing, and selling of food. Figure   Figure (A) When farms are far from their customers, the food-supply chain is long. When this happens, farmers make less money when the food is sold to consumers (see "farm share" pie chart) because the profits are spread out over all the partners in the chain.
(B) When the food-supply chain is short, there are fewer partners, and the famer ends up with a larger profit.

DIVERSIFICATION-DO NOT KEEP ALL THE EGGS IN ONE BASKET!
The idea of diversification is to make a farm less dependent on selling . Urban agriculture in the Netherlands. Urban Agric. Mag. : -. . Opitz, I., Berges, R., Piorr, A., and Krikser, T.