Within and the around the village, town, or city out-skirts, if plants are grown along with animals, it is urban agriculture. It also involves animal husbandry, aquaculture, agroforestry, and horticulture. Mainly it is practiced for income-earning or food-producing activities, or in some areas for recreation and relaxation.
The feature of urban agriculture that distinguishes it from a rural agriculture is that, the former is combined into the urban economic and ecological system which means urban agriculture is embedded in and interacting with the urban ecosystem. The integration includes the urban residents as laborers, uses urban resources such as organic waste as compose and urban waste water for irrigation, direct contact with the urban consumers, direct impacts urban ecology, being part of the urban food system, competing for land with other urban operations being influenced by urban policies and plans etc.
Urban agriculture helps the goal of food security and food safety in two ways: First, it increases the amount of food available to people living in cities and the second one is it allows fresh vegetables, fruits and meat products to be made available to the people who live in the city so that it reduces the food deserts. Bio-intensive method is the common and efficient form of urban agriculture because it promotes energy-saving local food production, urban and peri-urban agriculture are seen as sustainable agriculture.
Another important feature of urban agriculture is most people living in cities do not have any land to produce the food for them. But through this method, they can plant the plants made on small strips (cover having some thin sized mud and compost) in their balcony or on their top of the buildings.