Roles, impacts and services provided by livestock in European urban and peri-urban areas

Abstract

Livestock farming in urban and peri-urban areas finds a renewed interest in Europe as it meets consumer expectations for local products and the need for nature of city-dwellers. We aimed to review a fragmentary literature and to structure this analysis using the bundles of services framework. For peri-urban areas, the literature focusses on urban food planning in order to satisfy city food supply. Livestock farming in the urban areas is much less analysed, which led us to use some work outside Europe and to consult the websites of urban communities and some associative sites. Bundles of services provided by livestock farming are very different between these two types of areas. In Western European towns, provisioning services provided by livestock are minor compared with vegetables from urban gardens. Livestock animals mainly provide social services such as social reintegration, leisure and food education. Main limits are related to the odour, noise and epidemiological risks caused by the animals. Livestock farming systems are more productive in peri-urban areas where they benefit from consumer trust in local food systems. Herbivore farming provides various regulating services (climate, water and air quality, prevention of running fires) and meets the leisure expectations of city-dwellers: nature appreciation, horse riding centres, etc. Livestock farm development is mainly constrained by the high cost of land around cities. We conclude this review by proposing some research issues.