A landscape design approach for urban household food security; assessing people's attitudes and opinions towards residential landscape design for food production - a case of Lilongwe City, Malawi

摘要

We are living in a century of urbanization and the population of the world now lives in urban areas. This puts a lot of pressure on the urban land resource. There is competition on land use for infrastructure development and agricultural production even in the sub-Saharan region where sustenance is agricultural based and this results into food insecurity. Cities thus create environmental problems, but they also possess the solutions and that the challenge is in learning how to exploit its possibilities. How can food be produced within the urban bounds? This study looked at the possibility of changes in the traditional approach to urban residential landscape design in favour of incorporating edible plants as a food security strategy. The study was thus aimed at assessing the attitudes and opinions of the people of five low density residential areas in Lilongwe City in Malawi on the use of edible plants in urban residential landscape designs. The primary data were collected through a questionnaire self-administered by 65 respondents in the five areas of Lilongwe City that were considered potentially suitable for immediate development in this fashion. The analysis showed that 77% of the respondents strongly agreed and 17% just agreed making a 94% affirmation to the proposal of using edible plants in urban residential landscape designs, since it makes fresh fruits and vegetables available to them at the door step as their environment is enhanced. The report recommends that further studies on using edible plants in urban residential landscape designs be undertaken in order to develop possible design alternatives and also to assess productivity, economical and ecological viability, as food production is being celebrated in the whole residential landscape.