Transdisciplinarity and Action Research to Address the Complex Issues of Urban Agriculture

The BMBF project “Urban Agriculture as integrative element of a climate-optimized urban development” was designed as a inter- transdisciplinary research project, generating target and transformation knowledge in the field of multifunctional open space systems in the context of emerging megacities and the challenges going along with this development. One component of it is the is the Pilot Project “Peri-urban tourism and agriculture” exploring on possibilities on how to conserve and further develop the recreational benefit of small scale agriculture while improving the livelihoods of the farming families linking local tourism and peri-urban agriculture, processing and direct marketing. This article tries to link selected challenges of a transdisciplinary research approach: framing the problem, dealing with a multitude of actors, defining the types of knowledge and following the principle of recursiveness to the almost six year lasting research process. It describes the methods that were used during the main two phases of the action research process and describes the various types of knowledge generated. The conclusions reflect the application of the transdisciplinary approach itself, insights gained, and some limitations that the project team experienced during the application of the methods and collaboration with the various actors.