Urban agriculture is, in principle, multi-functional. It touches on many different urban sectors in its practice and outcomes, like urban food security and nutrition, public health, economic development, social inclusion and urban environmental management. In this issue we focus on urban agriculture as a direct strategy for poverty alleviation and social integration among disadvantaged groups (such as immigrants or refugees, HIV/Aids-affected households, the disabled, female-headed households with children, elderly people without pensions, young people without jobs) by integrating them more strongly into the urban network and providing them with a decent livelihood. Examples of the social impact of urban agriculture and the varieties of this impact around the world are presented. Their lessons can be used in supporting other organisations and future urban farmers in the building of sustainable cities.
Martin Bailkey, Joanna Wilbers and René van Veenhuizen
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
The number of people around the world who live in and around cities is increasing steadily, and the problems associated with this growth demand creative, multi-dimensional approaches. City authorities face enormous challenges in creating sufficient employment, in providing basic services such as drinking water, sanitation, health services and education, in managing urban wastes and wastewater, in creating efficient local economies and in facilitating the creation of environmentally and socially
sustainable communities in their cities.
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Takawira Mubvami and Milika Manyati
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
HIV and Aids affect all communities –both urban and rural. This article looks at how urban agriculture can be a way to integrate the HIV/Aids-infected and -affected households in a community. The article starts by highlighting some of the issues relating to HIV/Aids and their impact before presenting case
studies that demonstrate how urban agriculture has been used to integrate HIV/Aids-affected households into communities.
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Rebecca L. Rutt
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
Urban agriculture is commonly a solo endeavour practiced by individuals and households in search of fresh food. The benefits of urban agriculture activities are well-documented, so the search for ways to realise its valuable societal contributions is a vital issue particularly within the developing world, where urban farming is frequently the main livelihood activity and has the highest potential for impacting daily lives.
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Myles Oelofse, Raymond Auerbach and Andreas de Neergaard
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
The multi-functionality of urban agriculture makes it a widely practised activity in the townships surrounding the city of Durban, South Africa1. In Mpumalanga Township, due to the lack of land for small-scale agricultural production in the area, community gardening in the few available plots within the township has become a popular activity that provides community members with a number
of ecological as well as community services.
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Claudia Marcela Sánchez, Jairo Andrés Silva and Rolando Higuita
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
Just like other cities in the country and around the world, Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, is undergoing rapid population growth leading to more pronounced social inequalities. In 2005, this city of approximately 6.8 million people had a poverty rate of 38.5 percent, and most of the poor were suffering from significant nutritional deficiencies due to the lack of access to food in the necessary quantities and quality.
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André Fleury
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
The first forms of agriculture in Europe seem to have been community-based, as is still the case in many rural societies of the South. But, in the vicinity of modern cities, farmers have found it difficult to resist the processes of individualisation and increasing urbanisation. This article will highlight two recent phenomena taking place in France, which respond to and sometimes even counterbalance
these processes. The phenomena both illustrate initiatives that try to restore local urban-rural relationships.
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Rhonda Teitel-Payne
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
For over 30 years, The Stop Community Food Centre has been working to end hunger and build a
healthy and strong community in the Davenport West neighbourhood of the city of Toronto. The Stop strives to increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds community and challenges inequality.
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Zhang Feifei, Cai Jianming and Liu Gang
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
Migration to cities has increased rapidly since reforms took place in China. It has been estimated that
over the past 30 years, more than 300 million people have successfully transferred their residence and have found a job in one of the rapidly growing cities of China; and it is expected that this trend will continue in the coming 15-20 years (Feng, 1996). Quite a number of migrants stay in the periurban areas and turn to urban agriculture for their livelihoods.
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Yilmaz Korkmaz
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
Istanbul is an old, but rapidly modernising city. Large-scale migration from throughout Turkey into Istanbul and the integration of Turkey into the regional and global marketplace have been changing metropolitan patterns of household livelihood, food security and environmental conditions since the 1950s.
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| Article 8.pdf | 1.07 MB |
Robert J. Holmer and Anselmo B. Mercado
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
In recent years, the Asset-Based Community Development Approach (ABCD) has been recognised as an innovative strategy for community-driven development in urban and rural areas and as an alternative to the traditional needs-based approach applied by national government agencies, NGOs, and institutions such as the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (O'Leary, 2007).
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Matthew Lief
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
Thirty years after the 1976 youth uprising which signalled the inevitable end of apartheid, the lives of children growing up in Port Elizabeth remain constrained by the threat of disrupted, unstable families and severe poverty. Today the barrier faced by families to providing a supportive, nurturing environment for children is no longer a brutally oppressive and racist government, but the crushing burden of a population besieged by HIV/Aids and unemployment on a massive scale.
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Hugh Joseph
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
On a seven-acre site tucked out of sight behind a retail dairy operation, seven immigrant and refugee families this spring prepared for another season as some of Massachusetts’ newest farmers. The site in Dracut is one of four multi-user training farms sponsored by the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (NESFP).
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| Article 11.pdf | 1.07 MB |
Orrin Williams
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
Growing Home, located in Chicago, Illinois, was founded in 1992 by the late Les Brown, then Director of Policy for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. The Growing Home programme is designed to provide entry into the job market via the experience of urban agriculture.
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| Article 12.pdf | 609.58 KB |
Chipo Hungwe
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
The Nyanga Declaration signed by municipal authorities in 2002 represented a turning point in Zimbabwe as its accommodation and official recognition of urban agriculture heralded a change in the attitude of municipalities. Urban agriculture has great potential to improve household food security and survival, but as long as municipal initiatives only officially accommodate it without providing proper facilitation, like rearrangement and reallocation of resources, urban agriculture will continue to face many challenges.
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| Article 13.pdf | 620.6 KB |
Communication and Public relations Department Atacongo Association
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
The Atocongo Association is an organisation that has grown out of the corporate social responsibility efforts of Cementos Lima SA. It is committed to carrying out capacity-building and human development
programmes and projects which help to create opportunities for marginal urban groups seeking to improve their quality of life. One strategy used by the association to achieve this goal is urban agriculture.
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Dick Foeken
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
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| Article 15.pdf | 368.71 KB |
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
Please find the sections on Books and DVDs in the attachment
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| Books_DVDs.pdf | 273.48 KB |
In: UA Magazine no. 18 - Building Communities through Urban Agriculture
Please find the sections on Websites and Events in the attachment.
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| Websites_Events.pdf | 112.89 KB |
BUILDING COMMUNITIES THROUGH URBAN AGRICULTURE
ISSN 1571-6244
No. 18, July 2007
UA Magazine is published two 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:
Editors, No. 18
This issue was compiled by René van Veenhuizen (Responsible Editor) together with Joanna Wilbers of ETC-UA and Martin Bailkey of University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Web Editing, Events, and Books
Femke Hoekstra and René van Veenhuizen
Administration
Ellen Radstake
Language Editor
Catharina de Kat-Reynen
Design, Layout and Printing
Koninklijke BDU
Subscriptions
The editor: ruaf@etcnl.nl
Address
Urban Agriculture Magazine
P.O. Box 64
3830 AB Leusden
The Netherlands
Visitors’ address: Kastanjelaan 5, Leusden.
Tel: +31.33.4326000
Fax: +31.33.4940791
e-mail: ruaf@etcnl.nl
website: www.ruaf.org
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