Rooftop Hydroponics: Opportunity for Urban Agriculture in Godawari Municipality of Nepal

Abstract

Urbanization is growing in Nepal at a rapid pace with an increasing number of municipalities. Due to rapid urbanization, agricultural lands have been converting into buildings and infrastructures. This has negatively impacted the urban environment with decreased greeneries, open space, local food production, and groundwater recharge. In this context, this study aimed to explore the opportunity of roof-top hydroponics for urban agriculture in Godawari Municipality. A questionnaire survey was done in ward-14 of Godawari Municipality from November 2018 to December 2018 with a sample size of 64 households. A stratified random sampling method was applied for the household selection. Out of 64 respondents, 45 (71.31%) achieved high opportunity scores based on eight factors: Space, Willingness, Affordability, Manpower, Time, Knowledge, Technology, and Acceptance with incentives. Thus, roof-top hydroponics has a high opportunity for practicing urban agriculture to provide greeneries, fresh vegetables and fruits to the city dwellers locally in Godawari Municipality for realizing the concept of Food Green City.