Examining Cross-sector Collaboration as a Facilitator for Urban Agriculture Initiatives in order to Contribute to Sustainable Urban Development in Malmö

Abstract: Cities all around the world are recognizing the importance of sustainability when it comes to urban development. Not only the dramatic decline of fossil fuels, but also the recent epidemic of COVID-19 have triggered some rethinking about the fragile food systems everywhere. It sparked the growing interest of urban food production, greater self-sufficiency and independence. Urban agriculture (UA) is a promising answer to this overwhelming assignment and seems to hold big potential to tackle urban problems of social, environmental and economic origin, too. However, people need to collaborate across sectors in order to give UA the chance to flourish and develop in the city. This paper provides a theoretical contribution by bridging the research gap between the concepts of cross-sector collaboration, UA and sustainable urban development and aims to identify challenges, success factors and opportunities for the enhancement of UA. The city of Malmö was taken as a case, as the municipality claims to have a strong interest in UA and one sees a growing number of related initiatives popping up. The conduction of ten semi-structured interviews of experts and most relevant actors within Malmö´s scene of UA is the main source of data collection. Main findings conclude that for a proper flourishment of UA and sustainable urban development, more effective collaboration with the municipality is needed. Challenges include the lack of political backup, change of priorities and structural aspects. Factors that have shown to be important for reaching an effective collaboration include i.a. a common legal and operational framework, a clear plan of budget, communication, responsibilities and trust. This research provides useful information for any practitioner who works or is interested in field of UA in Malmö. The findings can serve representatives of the public, private and third sectors in their attempts to explore opportunities to enhance sustainable urban development and to gain understanding of cross-sector collaboration and its success factors.