Abstract

This paper addresses issues that affect poor urban households in the global south and uses Port Harcourt City Nigeria as its case study. It identified that poverty reduction strategies in Nigeria has always been top-down and generalised. Policy makers and planners have never considered differentiating urban from rural poverty and therefore, the contributions of urban agriculture has not been really appreciated. This paper reviewed urban agriculture from three developmental phases in Nigeria and suggested that to understand what it is and what it does, it should be city specific when defining it. it suggested that this should be done in regards to the features of urban agriculture and in relation to the city's economy. This is because what prompt someone to engage with urban agriculture in London is different from the motivation of those in Port Harcourt City. The paper concluded that three social relations are important in understanding why people engage with urban agriculture in the global south. They are gender, birth right and social network.