_{Tamale - Philip Amoah                                             Villa Maria del Triunfo - IPES}

New city page on urban agriculture in Sana'a (Yemen)

Please click here to read more on urban agriculture in Sana'a and the multi-stakeholder policy formulation and action planning process and the activities in the From Seed to Table programme.

Cities, Food and Agriculture: Challenges and the way forward

This policy briefing resulted from the international expert consultation organised by FAO-Food for the Cities and RUAF Foundation (24-25 September, 2009, in Rome), attended by some 25 experts on urban food security and urban agriculture from international organisations. Read more.

Wastewater Irrigation and Health: Assessing and Mitigating Risk in Low-income Countries

In most developing countries wastewater treatment systems are hardly functioning or have a very low coverage, resulting in large scale water pollution and the use of very poor quality water for crop irrigation especially in the vicinity of urban centres. This can create significant risks to public health, particularly where crops are eaten raw. Wastewater Irrigation and Health approaches this serious problem from a practical and realistic perspective, addressing the issues of health risk assessment and reduction in developing country settings. Click here for more information on this new book and receive a 20% discount.

Urban Farmer Field School in Bogota

Please click here to view some photos of the FSTT activities in Bogota by Liliana Ramirez.

Jac Smit in memoriam

"Jac Smit, often referred to as “the father of urban agriculture”, passed away on Sunday November 15th at his Washington, DC home, a few days after his 80th birthday. After working initially in the US (notably Chicago), Jac had a long career as a planner around the world, with assignments in Egypt, Iraq, Tanzania, and across South Asia, among others. Jac was a pioneer in advocating for the cause of urban agriculture, first publishing on it in the 1960s. He was the lead author on the seminal book on the subject: Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities (1996). Jac founded The Urban Agriculture Network (TUAN) in 1992; the unique library that he collected for TUAN will form the foundation of a new Urban Food and Agriculture Learning Centre in Toronto, to be managed by MetroAg – Alliance for Urban Agriculture. For more information on Jac’s contribution to the field of urban agriculture, see www.jacsmit.com". (Joe Nasr)

RUAF Update 13

Please click here for a new issue of the RUAF Update, containing the latest news on the activities of the RUAF partners. Previous versions of the RUAF Update are available here.

Sustainable Food Planning

On October 9 and 10, 2009, the first AESOP sustainable food planning conference has been held in Almere, the Netherlands. This conference, under auspices of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP), was organized by AESOP, ISOMUL and the Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Read more

Course 3: Urban Agriculture Types

The third distance learning course on Urban Agriculture is available on http://moodle.ruaf.org/. Course 3 introduces the main urban agriculture types and systems found around the world, including different production systems as well as input supply, processing and marketing systems linked to urban agriculture. It explains why a typology of urban agriculture systems is needed and briefly describes each of the different urban agriculture types in terms of the actors involved, their resource-use, location, functions, technical aspects, development challenges and support needs.

Belo Horizonte winner of the Future Policy Award 2009

Recognized as the world's most comprehensive policy that tackles hunger immediately and secures a healthy and affordable food supply for all, the Food Security Programme developed since the early 1990s in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is the winner of the Future Policy Award 2009 presented by the World Future Council.

Please click here for more information, a downloadable film about Belo Horizonte's food policy, and general inspiration.

UA Magazine no. 22 - Building Resilient Cities

The latest issue of the Urban Agriculture Magazine is now published online.

RUAF-CFF Final report

The RUAF Cities Farming for the Future programme ended in 2008 with very positive results. Activities of RUAF continued in most of the cities in the follow up programme From Seed to Table. The final report, has been finalised and a summary can be found here.

"Urban and peri-urban agriculture for Resilient Cities" (proceedings WUF IV session)

The RUAF Foundation, together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Development Research Centre, Urban Harvest, the Chinese Urban Agriculture Association and the Nanjing Agriculture and Forestry Bureau, organised a session called "Urban and peri-urban agriculture for Resilient Cities (Green, Productive and Socially Inclusive)" during the World Urban Forum of UN Habitat from 3 to 7 November 2008 in Nanjing, China. The conference proceedings , as well as the DVD with main publications of the organisers and the city posters that were presented, are now available online.