Editorial

Joanna Wilbers, René van Veenhuizen and Cecilia Castro

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

Increasingly, local authorities have come to understand the role urban agriculture can play in sustainable development of their cities, especially in eradicating hunger and poverty. Urban producers’ organisations are seen as important actors in this process and seek to represent their members in various fora (e.g. in policy dialogue, in project planning) and as a channel to supply technical assistance and other services to their members.

Social Organisations of Agricultural Producers in Latin America and Europe

Alain Santandreu and Cecilia Castro

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

In an effort to improve knowledge about and positively impact local realities, IPES and ETC-Urban
Agriculture, in partnership with local institutions and researchers and with the support of IDRC (Canada), carried out between 2005 and 2006 a project entitled “Social organisations of urban and periurban producers (SOUPP): management models and innovative alliances for political influence

An Inter-Regional Action-Research Agenda

Marielle Dubbeling

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

Within the framework of the IPES-ETC-IDRC project entitled "Social organisations of urban and periurban producers: management models and innovative alliances for political influence" (on which the previous article reports), an inter-regional action-research agenda was formulated based on inputs from the participating urban and periurban producers’ organisations. The agenda highlights aspects within the organisations that need strengthening and external support and is meant to guide all stakeholders involved in the development of new research and action projects concerning urban and periurban producers’ organisations.

Urban Farmers' Network of Villa Maria Del Triunfo

Noemí Soto and Cecilia Castro

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

In various cities in Latin America, local governments have supported the organisation of urban farmers. The preferred form is usually a network, because of its flexibility. In this way the farmers work collectively, but without any formalisation. Two such farmers’ networks can be found in Villa María del Triunfo and Rosario (see box). In the city of Villa María del Triunfo (VMT) in Lima, Peru, urban agriculture is primarily carried out by members of the Urban Farmers’ Network, which currently includes more than 2,000 agricultural producers, and which is undergoing a period of formalisation and consolidation.

Strategic Alliances: the Organic Farmers' Association of Uruguay

Alfredo Blum

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

The Organic Farmers’ Association of Uruguay (APODU) is a national organisation of rural and periurban organic farmers. A study was undertaken by CIEDUR in 2005 and 2006, which concentrated on farmers from the Montevideo metropolitan area, the country’s capital.

Municipal Policy Influencing: Experiences of Gardeners in Amsterdam

Johan van Schaick

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

In 2001 the Amsterdam municipality started preparations for a new spatial plan, which became the basis for city planning development in the period 2002-2010. The plan, entitled "Choosing urbanism", aimed to place residential and economic functions within the city limits, while green areas were to be established on the city fringes. Among other steps, the plan involved sacrificing five allotment garden parks for housing construction and infrastructure developments. It compelled the tenant of the allotment garden parks, the Association of Allotment Gardens (or in Dutch: Bond van Volkstuinders, BvV), to choose an entirely new and different strategy for influencing policy, of which this article provides an account.

Towards a Better Understanding of Low-income Producers' Organisations

Clarissa Ruggieri

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

The FAO/IDRC Project, "Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture: Towards a better understanding of low-income producers’ organisations" aims at identifying concrete solutions to the difficulties faced by urban producers’ groups in achieving sustainable livelihoods for their members. In this article some preliminary results are provided, regarding the groups’ capacity to attain self-reliance and sustainability; and the role of mayors, local authorities and city executives in promoting a politically friendly environment for civil society participation, farmers’ entrepreneurship and capacity building.

Urban and Periurban Agriculture Producers' Organisations in Cairo

Dr. Ahlam ElNaggar and Dr. Mostafa Bedier

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

The city of Cairo has been the capital of Egypt for more than a 1,000 years and its roots extend back more than 50 centuries. The city’s population in 2006 was 7.8 million on a total area of about 3,085 km². Cairo is made up of one old city and five new cities encompassing about 29 municipalities.

Sustaining Low-Income Urban Agricultural Producers' Organisations in Accra, Ghana

Irene S. Egyir

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

Many small urban agricultural enterprises in Accra are members of informal organisations that invest little capital and yield low income, even though more formal alliances would ensure more effective bargaining and negotiations with urban authorities and other groups. This article describes the results of a study initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in the city of Accra, Ghana. Each individual enterprise in a producers’ organisation is a stakeholder but not necessarily a shareholder in the operation. Trust is a key feature in informal alliances.

Organising Urban Farmers' Groups in the City of Nairobi and Environs

Zarina Ishani and Zaynah Khanbhai

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

Various types of informal groups can be found in urban and rural areas in Kenya. One would expect farmers, livestock keepers and producers’ groups to be located only in the rural areas, but they actually also exist in the cities and their environs, where they are engaged in urban and periurban agriculture.

Alliances Between Farmers and Other Actors in Dakar

Awa BA

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

Urban farmers produce crops within and around cities (Mougeot, 2000). They do not form a separate group from the urban population, nor do they live self-sufficiently. They maintain diverse relations with other actors in the city. Some of these relations go beyond the sale of agricultural or non-agricultural produce and become strategies and alliances among socio-economic and political actors.

Bamako Farmers' Organisations: New alliances to protect their land rights

Andrés Vélez-Guerra

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

Lack of security of tenure and access to urban farmland undermines the poor’s capacity to practice and sustain urban agriculture. Empirical evidence from urban and periurban farmers’ groups in Bamako, Mali, suggests that as urbanisation intensifies in urban cores, land scarcity and competition trigger farmers’ political involvement and organisation in order to protect their livelihood and land rights.

The Siyazama Community Allotment Garden Association, Cape Town, South Africa

Rob Small

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

Urban agriculture has been practiced in Cape Town for a long time and involves many different types of
activities. There is currently an increasingly organised communitybased organic farming and gardening movement in the city. This movement is led by associations such as the Vukuzenzela Urban Farmers Association (VUFA). Abalimi Bezekhaya (Planters of the Home), which supports VUFA, is the leading
urban agriculture organisation in Cape Town.

A Cooperative from the Neighbourhood serving the City

Mario Gonzalez Novo

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

In Havana, Cuba, in 1997, in one of the areas with a high population density, five neighbours got together in an effort to produce their own food. Today this endeavour has become a highly successful cooperative, and an example to other such initiatives.

Different types of Agricultural Cooperatives with Periurban Farmers in China: two cases

Feifei Zhang, Guoxia Wang and Jianming Cai

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

In 1978, China started to dismantle the commune system and the socalled "eating from the same big pot" that existed for decades, i.e. absolute egalitarianism whereby everyone gets the same benefits irrespective of his/her performance. Village land began to be contracted to peasant families on a 30-year basis in most cases and a system of "household contract responsibility" was introduced that set farm output quotas for each household and linked remuneration to output.

Gyinyase Organic Vegetable Growers' Association in Kumasi, Ghana

Osei Kwame Boateng, Bernard Keraita and Maxwell S.K. Akple

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

Kumasi has about 10 main marketoriented vegetable farming sites. Many of these farming sites are
linked to farmers’ associations. Gyinyase Organic Vegetable Growers’ Association (GOVGA) is a  large urban vegetable farmers’ association in Kumasi that was formed through the merger of smaller associations in three of the main farming sites in Kumasi.

Agricultural Business Associations in Urban and Periurban Areas in Lima, Peru

Jessica Alegre, Dennis Escudero and Omar Tesdell

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

The large urban market of Lima provides an opportunity for periurban and urban farmers in the east of Lima to sell their products. However, studies by the Urban Harvest Programme of CIP in Lima reveal that the current system for commercialisation of urban agricultural products is underdeveloped. In addition there is a lack of trust, insecurity and a lack of capacity among urban farmers to organise and improve through social learning processes and coordinated business management efforts. This article describes an effort to improve this situation.

Creating Market Opportunities for Poor Women Farmers in Kenya

Mwangi Stanley, Mumbi Kimathi, Mary Kamore, Nancy Karanja and Mary Njenga

In: UA Magazine 17 - Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations

African leafy vegetables (ALVs) are traditionally an important element in the diet of many Africans, but the market has remained underdeveloped due to the lack of any successful efforts to commercialise the crop. The sources of a few bunches of vegetables in a Nairobi market were traced back mostly to wild harvesting by small-scale women farmers in western Kenya – 400 km from Nairobi. It appeared that brokers and traders packed the vegetables in sacks that were transported to the city in night buses. This drastically reduced the quality of the vegetables. Interventions initiated in 2002 by FCI and its partners have dramatically reversed this trend.

Books / Web sites

Please find the section on books and websites in the attachment.

Events

Colophon

STRENGTHENING URBAN PRODUCERS' ORGANISATIONS

ISSN 1571-6244
No. 17, February 2007

UA Magazine is published three times a year by the Network of Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF), under the Cities Farming for the Future Programme, which is financed by DGIS, the Netherlands, and IDRC, Canada.

UA Magazine is translated into French, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic, and distributed in separate editions through the RUAF regional networks, and is also available on www.ruaf.org.

The RUAF Partners are

• Latin America: IPES Promoción del Desarrollo Sostenible, Lima Peru; email: au@ipes.org.pe; Magazine in Spanish: www.ipes.org/au
• French Speaking West Africa: IAGU Institute Africain de Gestion Urbaine, Dakar, Senegal; email: moussa@iagu.org; Magazine in French: www.iagu.org/ruaf/ruafiagufr.php
• English Speaking West Africa: International Water Management Institute, IWMI-Ghana; email: o.cofie@cgiar.org |
  Website: www.iwmi.cgiar.org/africa/West/projects/RUAFII-CFF.htm
• East and Southern Africa: MDP Municipal Development Partnership (MDP); email: tmubvami@mdpafrica.org.zw | Website: www.mdpafrica.org.zw/urban_agriculture.html
• South and South East Asia: International Water Management Institute, IWMI-India; email: r.simmons@cgiar.org | Website: www.iwmi.cgiar.org/southasia/index.aspnc=9106&msid=119
• North Africa and Middle East: American University of Beirut, email: zm13@aub.edu.lb; Magazine in Arabic: www.ecosystems.org/esduhomepage.php
• China: IGSNRR Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resource Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; email: caijm@igsnrr.ac.cn; Magazine in Chinese: www.cnruaf.com.cn
• Coordination and Support: ETC Foundation; email: ruaf@etcnl.nl; Magazine in English: www.ruaf.org

Editors, No. 17
This issue was compiled by René van Veenhuizen (Responsible Editor) together with Joanna Wilbers
of ETC-UA and Cecilia Castro of IPES.

Web Editing, Events, and Books
Marije Pouw and René van Veenhuizen

Administration
Ellen Radstake

Language Editor
Catharina de Kat-Reynen

Design, Layout and Printing
Koninklijke BDU

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Address
Urban Agriculture Magazine
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