Urban Ecological Agriculture Versus Land Scarcity: A Tale of Two Realities Based on 6 Indonesian Cities

The discursive context of urban agriculture (UA) is the need to address urbanisation and ecological sustainability pressures through urban land-use policies. Most of the UA literature focuses on food security outcomes but undertheorises its effects on land scarcity. Land scarcity is, however, a structural factor shaping which UA models succeed or collapse. The objectives of this article are to investigate the following: (1) Which land scarcity types emerge from UA initiatives? and (2) Which governance structures influence the land constraints and contribute to the success of UA initiatives? Methodologically, the article critically compares UA projects across six Indonesian cities with documented evidence and statistical data. The results demonstrate that while UA projects are maturing and expanding across all cities, their operationalisation and the spatial distribution of benefits differ. Urbanisation consumes the very arable land urban farmers require, while UA attempts to integrate food production into dense, built-up environments. Community-led UA models are more resilient under land pressure than government-directed programs. The conclusions include: (1) policy recommendations recognising community agricultural land in urban zoning and coding, (2) advocating for urban farming in city-level ecosystem valuation, and (3) stimulating or creating hybrid governance approaches to enable these changes.