Ecosystem Services Provision from Urban Farms in a Secondary City of Myanmar, Pyin Oo Lwin

Abstract

Urban farms provide a large diversity of ecosystem services, which collectively have a positive effect on different constituents of human wellbeing. However, urban farms are facing increasing pressure due to accelerated urbanization and socioeconomic transformation, especially in rapidly developing countries such as Myanmar. There is an increasing call to harness the multiple benefits that urban farms offer in order to foster urban green economic transitions and increase the wellbeing of urban residents. This study examines how different types of urban farms provide ecosystem services, focusing on Pyin Oo Lwin, one of the secondary cities of Myanmar. We conduct household surveys with urban farmers representing the three main types of urban farms encountered in the city, namely seasonal crop farms (N = 101), coffee farms (N = 20), and nurseries (N = 20). The results suggest that all types of urban farms in our sample provide multiple provisioning, cultural, regulating, and supporting ecosystem services, which collectively contribute directly to different constituents of human wellbeing such as (a) food security, (b) livelihoods and economic growth, and (c) public health and social cohesion. Food crops and commercial crops (e.g., coffee) are the major provisioning ecosystem services provided by our studied urban farms, with some farms also producing medicinal plants. These ecosystem services contribute primarily to farmer livelihoods and economic growth, and secondarily to household food security (through self-consumption) and health (through nutritious diets and medicinal products). Food sharing is a common practice between respondents for building social cohesion, and is practiced to some extent by most seasonal crop farmers. Almost all surveyed urban farms in our sample provide diverse cultural services to their owners, ensuring the delivery of intangible benefits that have a further positive effect on human wellbeing. It is argued that efforts should be made to ensure the continuous supply of these ecosystem services in order to contribute to urban green economic transitions in Pyin Oo Lwin and other similar secondary cities.