Developing a Success Index for Urban Agriculture Implementation to Strengthen Food Security in Egypt

Abstract

This study develops and validates a Success Index for urban farming implementation in the Egyptian context, addressing the limited integration of urban agriculture within national food-security strategies. Egypt faces severe structural pressures, including desert-dominated land availability, water scarcity, agricultural land fragmentation, food waste, and rising dependence on imports, with wheat imports reaching 58% and agricultural land losses of approximately 74,500 hectares between 1992 and 2015. Using a mixed-methods design, the research combines literature-based analysis of food-security resources and pillars, comparative assessment of local and international urban farming cases, and semi-structured interviews with Egyptian practitioners, including Tulima Farms, Shagarha, VertiCairo, GrowPro, and private urban gardeners. The findings identify differentiated success conditions for professional urban agriculture and private urban gardening. For commercial farms, decisive indicators include strategic location, crop-yield efficiency, capital availability, licensing, water and electricity access, and problem-solving capacity. For household gardens, convenience of location, knowledge access, community support, time commitment, and safe cultivation practices are central. The study concludes that urban farming cannot replace rural agriculture but can complement Egypt’s food system by activating underused urban spaces, reducing food miles, creating micro-enterprise opportunities, and strengthening local urban economic resilience significantly.