Abstract:
Urban Agriculture has an incredible ability to address various burning issues in the urban
community such as poverty, malnutrition, unhygienic food stuff and food insecurity which have
arisen due to the continuous increase in global urban population. Women can play a key role
in urban agriculture due to their role in food management at household level. Nevertheless, at
present women participation in urban agriculture is significantly unsatisfactory. In this research,
primary data were collected from a sample of 82 respondents in the capital of Sri Lanka, Sri
Jayawardanepura Kotte. The results of the study confirm a significant difference in the perceptions
on urban agriculture among urban women farmers and urban women non-farmers. The most
influential socio-economic factors affecting the women participation in urban agriculture are; age,
education level, number of members in the family and total cultivable area. The time constraints
for farming, poor quality of planting inputs and lack of knowledge are the mainly identified
constraints that hinder women’s contribution in urban agriculture. The results of the study further
reveal that the best strategy practiced by the urban women farmers to uplifting the family economy
is re-investing the income or savings of household expenditure due to urban agriculture activities
on same agricultural activities. Further, the fitted model on can be used to determine the level of
women participation in urban agriculture.
