THE IDEA OF ARTISAN AGRICULTURE

Conventional agriculture does not integrate easily into the urban fabric. It is space consuming, requires large machinery and heavy spraying of fertilizers and pesticides is "normal". Risking dust and chemicals to drift into residential areas will always be a concern and therefore conventional agriculture becomes incompatible with modern city-living.
In the urban landscape of Bergen, stuck between mountain walls,  the artisan model can work better as it is more flexible and adaptable.

Artisan: from Italian: artigiano, is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewelry, household items, and tools. The term can also be used as an adjective to refer to the craft of hand making food products, such as bread, beverages and cheese.

Manufacture by hand and with hand tools imparts unique and individual qualities to artisanal products, in contrast to mass produced goods where every one is nearly identical.

Artisans were the dominant producers of goods before the Industrial Revolution.  Artisans employ creative thinking and manual dexterity to produce their goods. (wikipedia.com)

When speaking of building communities upon an artisan economy one can assume that the food produced is of good quality and worth celebrating simply because of the knowledge, skills and concern put in the effort of making it.

Other plus words relating to an artisan agrarian economy are; 

# low toxicity farming, agroecological farming practices with a minimum of toxic pesticides and fertilizers. 

# high value products, for urban markets comes from smaller parcels. A community will focus on high value products. (You know your neighbor will suffer if you produce bad sugarpeas or rhubarb.)

# vertically integrated economy, the focus of artisan agriculture is on finished food products. The local community benefit from transforming the raw foodstuff into final products.

# integrated infrastructure, water, waste-water, energy and solid-waste management systems offer opportunities to both integrate with urban infrastructure and turn waste into shared resources. ( Composting food waste for soil improvement,  treating urban runoff in ponds using it for irrigation (water source), using waste urban heat for green houses.

# diverse education, the urban farmers education, or training of skills, covers agroecological farming practices and possible a range of small-business management strategies (to support the vertically integrated business opportunities).

# economic diversity, mixing agriculture with processing, retail, restaurants, agro-tourism and education greater economic diversity is achieved in the community, new opportunities for the inhabitants.

Skills and knowledge are of high value,which appeals to us and inspires us.