For decades, urban agriculture has been promoted primarily for its community-building and localized food security benefits. However, a groundbreaking shift is occurring in how modern cities classify these vital green spaces. As of January 2026, the global conversation has officially moved from treating them as “hobby farming” to recognizing them as “critical climate infrastructure.” A data-backed example of this transformation is currently unfolding in Depok, Indonesia, where a collaborative project has successfully proven that urban farms are a powerful, scalable tool against the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect.
The challenge of urban heat
As cities expand, natural land cover is rapidly replaced by heat-absorbing concrete, asphalt, and steel. The UHI phenomenon causes urban centres to heat up at a terrifying rate, often twice the global average. Depok, a bustling and densely populated satellite city in the Greater Jakarta metropolitan area, is no stranger to this crisis. With rapid urbanization actively shrinking traditional agricultural land and creating a sweltering concrete jungle, residents have faced increasingly oppressive urban heat alongside mounting food security challenges.
Turning vacant land into productive green spaces
To respond to these challenges, Rikolto, IPB University, and Perkumpulan Indonesia Berseru launched a collaborative initiative to scale up circular urban farming in Depok.
The initiative aimed not only to just to grow kangkong, tomatoes, and pakcoy for local consumption, but also to scientifically measure the impact of regenerative farming on the local microclimate. By establishing ecological demonstration plots and equipping urban farmers (the vast majority of whom are women) with advanced training, the initiative turned vacant urban plots into highly productive green spaces.
These sites became more than gardens. They became spaces for local food production, community empowerment, and environmental action.
Connecting local action with policy
The scientific results have been nothing short of revolutionary. Using both automatic weather stations and manual tracking, researchers gathered hard data proving that these farms significantly alter their surrounding microclimate. The agricultural vegetation effectively increases heat storage and drastically reduces heat release back into the air. In areas where land cover changed from bare open spaces to vegetated urban farms, researchers recorded a tangible, measurable decrease in the Diurnal Temperature Range (DTR). In essence, the data confirmed what many suspected: urban agriculture functions as an active, localized micro-cooling system for dense residential areas.
This brings us to the monumental policy shifts witnessed in January 2026. Armed with undeniable microclimate data, advocates successfully pushed for these spaces to be recognized as officially sanctioned cooling infrastructure. Through rigorous multi-stakeholder collaboration, this circular urban agriculture model is being actively integrated into Depok’s official food, climate, and development policies. City planners are now looking at urban farms not as temporary community projects waiting for a developer’s bulldozer, but as permanent, vital public utilities that cool the city, recycle food waste into compost, and sustainably feed residents.
What can cities learn from Depok?
For FOODCITYBOOST, the Depok case highlights an important message: urban agriculture can support cities in addressing several challenges at once. It can strengthen local food systems, reactivate underused land, foster inclusion and participation, and contribute to climate adaptation.
As cities across Europe and beyond look for practical pathways towards sustainability, examples like Depok show that urban agriculture can be part of a wider urban transition, one that connects food, people, and the environment in more resilient ways.
REFERENCES
https://www.rikolto.org/stories/cooling-cities-through-urban-farming-reflections-from-depok
https://lestari.kompas.com/read/2026/01/01/202828986/urban-farming-bisa-turunkan-suhu-kota-ini-hasil-riset-ipb?page=all
https://southeastasia.rikolto.org/projects/lowering-the-heat-feeding-citizens-depok-indonesia
Image source: Freepik
