Alternative Agro-Food Network and Greenhouse Infrastructures : Towards A Community-Based System For Urban Greenhouse Growers, With Primary Case Studies From The Netherlands

Urbanisation, growing population pressure and extreme weather conditions could all contribute to food insecurity. In the context of greenhouse farming, vegetables are harvested in a controlled environment, resulting in high-quality production with minimum resources. Such green infrastructure has also become promising in urban areas and non-arable lands. In the thesis, we would focus primarily on vegetable greenhouse horticultural sector. The thesis chose to focus on the Netherlands since it has concentrated regions with specialised greenhouse knowledge, which means high spillover effects with high knowledge cumulativeness, higher degrees of opportunities and a wide variety of approaches. The thesis argues that there is an existing gap between the high-tech precision, large-scale greenhouse farming industry and community-based, small-scale social initiatives. Large greenhouse industry can be more efficient with enabling technology, infrastructure and capital, however, it can also be monopolistic competing against the interests of traditional farming and further alienating people from food production. Hence, the thesis proposes community-based greenhouse as an alternative agro-food model to be integrated into the current food production regime, therefore contributing potentially to key societal challenges, such as food self-sufficiency, community democracy, knowledge transfer, and employment. The main part of our research involves conducting primary research studies, a mixed-method would be employed with the use of surveys, email responses, interviews, observational studies and site visits