Urban Farming and Livelihood Resilience in Coastal Cities: An Economic and Environmental Accounting Perspective from Kendari
Abstract
Coastal cities in the Global South face increasing challenges in balancing economic development with environmental sustainability. Urban farming has emerged as a low-impact, community-based practice that can enhance livelihood resilience while contributing to green urban growth. However, its role is often overlooked in formal development accounting systems. This study adopts an economic and environmental accounting perspective to evaluate the dual role of urban farming in Kendari, a coastal city in Eastern Indonesia. Specifically, it assesses (1) the economic contribution of urban farming as part of the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries (AFF) sector to the city’s Gross Domestic Regional Product (GDRP), and (2) environmental performance using indicators from the Asian Green City Index (AGCI), including energy consumption, CO₂ emissions, and air quality (NO₂, SO₂, PM₁₀). Data analysis reveals that the AFF sector, within which urban farming is embedded, ranks as the third-largest contributor to Kendari’s GDRP (10.66%), yet its specific value remains unrecorded in sectoral financial reporting. Environmentally, Kendari’s per capita energy consumption (1,121 kWh/person) and annual CO₂ emissions (316,560 tons) exceed AGCI benchmarks, although air quality remains within acceptable thresholds. By applying integrated accounting tools to quantify both economic output and ecological impact, this study demonstrates that urban farming can serve as both a productivity-enhancing and climate-mitigating urban asset. The findings underscore the need to institutionalize urban agriculture within local economic accounting frameworks and sustainability assessments to advance low-carbon development and support SDG implementation in coastal urban environments.
Keywords: peri-urban agriculture, adaptive capacity, urban coastal livelihoods, food system sustainability, informal economy
© 2025 Serbian Geographical Society, Belgrade, Serbia.
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Serbia.
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