By RFF
Urban agriculture (UA) is no longer just a feel-good initiative, but it is becoming an essential infrastructure for cities that face climate disruptions, rising food insecurity, and growing urban populations. Despite its promises toward climate resilience, food security, and community connection, UA still faces a fundamental challenge: economic sustainability. According to Henry Gordon-Smith, a world-renowned expert in UA and founder and CEO of Agritecture, what urban farming truly needs today is not more technology, but smarter business models. As he outlines in a recent article in the media outlet Startup City, the future of urban food production lies in relevance, not the most technologically advanced. His experience advising projects in over 40 countries reveals a key insight: Instead of defaulting to technology, initiatives should start with purpose and build a strategy that aligns with local needs, policies, and physical constraints.
At FOODCITYBOOST, through our six Living Labs spread across Europe, we actively explore how urban agriculture can scale in real-life settings while staying rooted in community needs and sustainability goals. These Living Labs function as open innovation ecosystems, where new business models are tested and co-created with users, local authorities, and researchers. The emphasis is on iterative learning and scaling up solutions that work; not just in theory, but in practice.
A Closer Look: Business Model Insights from Recent Research
Recent studies provide valuable insights into how urban and peri-urban farms are developing sustainable and scalable business models amid complex challenges.
A qualitative study (2024) of ten commercial urban farms in the Stockholm region, titled “Analyzing the divergence and development of business models for urban farming”, highlights a diverse marketplace where farms continuously adapt their business models. Complementing this, a Polish peri-urban farming study (2023), titled “Farming under Urban Pressure: Business Models and Success Factors of Peri-Urban Farms”, identifies key success factors: motivation and creativity, product quality, and especially strong customer relationships. The encroaching urban environment remains a significant challenge, emphasizing the need for resilient, locally tailored business models.
Across these two contexts, Sweden’s urban farms and Poland’s peri-urban farms, a common thread is clear: successful ventures need clear, adaptable business models.
From Research to Action: Lessons from URBAgr’Inn Days
These themes resonated strongly during the first Urban Agriculture Innovation Days (URBAgr’Inn Days), hosted in May 2025 by the University of Liège and Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, and initiated by the IIS Wasabi 2.0 project. During the session “Towards Sustainable Profitability in Urban Agriculture”, experts tackled the question: how can UA remain economically viable while staying true to its social and environmental missions?
In a key intervention, Prof. Haïssam Jijakli from Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech of the University of Liège, a FOODCITYBOOST partner, presented the following findings from a global study of 24 urban farming companies, identifying seven distinct business models operating in urban and peri urban agriculture:
• cost-reduction
• diversification
• differentiation
• shared economy
• experience
• experimental
• and farm management
Each model carries different investment needs and value propositions., from profit-driven strategies to socially motivated structures. Jijakli emphasized that context matters, a point Gordon-Smith also raises. Urban farms must tailor their models to local policy, energy costs, community demand, and real estate realities. He called for stronger public engagement, targeted R&D, and professional training, arguing that profitability and purpose can co-exist, if built on the right foundations.
Other contributions during the session reinforced this idea. Namely, Bart Willems and Jan Willem van der Schans introduced market-oriented typologies from the COREnet project, helping UA practitioners define their customer base, scale, and supply chain strategy. Meanwhile, Esther Veen (Wageningen University, also a FOODCITYBOOST partner) reminded us of the personal motivations behind UA; joy, routine, connection with nature and how these “mundane” reasons are often what make urban farming truly sustainable in the long term.
Looking Forward: Building Sustainable Business Models
The message is clear: urban agriculture needs more than green thumbs and innovative tech. It needs sound business logic, relevance, policy support, and needs to be driven by purpose. That’s why at FOODCITYBOOST, we are not just responding to today’s challenges; we’re looking at tomorrow’s. Through our Living Labs and consortium expertise, we’re looking to provide insights and tools to set the foundations for unlocking UA’s potential as a resilient, inclusive, and economically viable sector.
