The first issue of the Urban Agriculture Magazine presented articles covering the broad spectrum of urban agriculture. This second issue focuses on a specific topic: Urban Livestock, and this is how the Urban Agriculture Magazine will appear from now on. It will be published three times a year, each time covering a specific topic.
This issue came out a bit later than planned. The number of articles submitted was high, and we certainly hope we will receive the same kind of enthusiasm for the next issues. We offer you 16 articles in this issue. It was decided to publish almost all of the submitted articles, because the issue of urban livestock appeared to cover many different aspects, and only by taking all these contributions together we felt the issue was adequately dealt with. In forthcoming issues we will continue to try to keep the amount of articles to about 10, not going over the 40 pages in the paper version of the Urban Agriculture Magazine.
The appearance of the Urban Agriculture Magazine has been received very positively, and various encouraging reactions on the first issue have been sent to us. We have put the Editorial Board in place, in which persons of different organisations take a seat, including the Regional Focal Points on Urban Agriculture. These organisations will play a major role in the further development and regionalisation of the UA Magazine in the near future. In the next issue you will receive more information on this.
The subscription policy of the UA Magazine is under discussion with the RUAF Focal Points and the Editorial Board, but it is certain that the hardcopy edition will cost you about 15 US$ per year. Of course, the UA Magazine will remain available for free on RUAF's web site.
Guest editors for this issue were Azage Tegegne from ILRI in Addis Adeba, Ethiopia and Hans Schiere, from IAC and Wageningen University, The Netherlands. A considerable input was also received from the Urban Livestock group of ETC: Ann Waters Bayer, Katrien van 't Hooft, Sheila Oparachoa and Willem van Weperen. A great thanks to them all.
The Editor.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
The cobblestones of the streets in the old city of Pompeii near Rome are scarred by the wheels of wagons that used to be drawn by horses and/or oxen, for carrying goods or for supplying the military. The covered bridge in Florence is now the home of goldsmiths and jewellers who replaced butchers and fish traders, supposedly because a 'Medici' queen complained of the smell.
(A. Scappini, pers. communication 2000)
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
For two centuries after the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam agriculture on Manhattan Island remained not all that dissimilar from farming elsewhere in northern North America. Over the years farm families engaged in both commercial and subsistence production, raising livestock, garden and field crops. They gladly sold surpluses when they existed, but always sought to provide for domestic needs first.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
Urban livestock agriculture (ULA) in the USA is a constructive, yet largely unknown, underground, and unevenly regulated activity. Livestock encompasses multiple meanings for practitioners in the urban environments: economic buttress, tradition, cultural and/or religious endurance, and community cohesiveness. Research on and policy development for urban livestock (as for community food security generally) is lacking and needed. However, because livestock in the city is kept under diverse legal, illegal, and quasi-legal conditions, and because practitioners tend not to be part of the dominant culture, care must be taken to raise the issues under circumstances of support. In this article it is argued that issues of invisibility, distrust, and/or animosity between regulators and practitioners of urban livestock are founded more in the lack of attention paid by policy makers to food systems and food security generally, than in insurmountable challenges of urban livestock as a positive urban land use.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
A review of dairies and pig-keeping in the twin-city of Hubli-Dharwad, in the State of Karnataka, illustrates the role of livestock in household livelihood strategies in Indian cities. Small urban dairies and roaming pigs are a common sight in Hubli-Dharwad and make an important contribution to household livelihoods and urban food supplies. However, the future of livestock keeping in urban centres can be questioned, given public concerns at city and national level and recent moves by city authorities to evict pigs.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
In the streets of urban India, many cows can be seen scavenging around. At first glance it may appear as though the cattle are an undisputed part of city life, but the case of Delhi shows that the issue is surrounded by controversy. The persistence of dairy farming in the city is related to how villages and their people become urbanised. Since 1951, about 140 villages have become completely incorporated into the city of Delhi (Census of India, 1991). Caste-specific economic traditions and constraints cause certain households to continue dairy farming despite the spatial constraints.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
The Beja are a confederation of tribes united by a common language, TuBedawiye, and a common segmentary structure, each of which is linked to a common ownership and use of land. The three main tribes are the Amar'ar/Atmaan, the Bishariyyn and the Hadendowa, who mostly live in North-eastern Sudan between the Egyptian and the Eritrean borders, and all speak similar versions of TuBedawiye. This article describes the migration of Beja pastoralist labour to Port Sudan from Halaib Province (NE Sudan). It reviews the different livestock holdings that the Beja have in town and shows that, although most urban-based pastoralists live in great poverty, some manage to successfully exploit urban opportunities whilst continuing to engage in rural-based livelihood strategies.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
The main agricultural cities of Senegal are located in the Niayes Zone. Production in this zone accounts for more than two thirds of the total horticultural production, and urban livestock is also well represented. Livestock keeping is well integrated into the production systems, in the form of waste recycling and animal traction. Considerable efforts are being made to restructure the production system in order to meet increasing demand for animal products. An exploratory study of the main agricultural systems in the Niayes Zone indicated that there is great diversity in farm products (fruit and vegetables as well as livestock) and also potential for further development. The main constraints to further development are the land tenure system, deterioration of natural resources, lack of organisation of farmers and minimal access to credit.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
In a survey done in 1999, basic information was collected on urban farming practices in Nakuru, Kenya. The main aim was to obtain a general overview of urban agriculture in this town for the local authorities in the context of their town planning exercises. Part of the survey covered several aspects of livestock keeping.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
In this article a systems approach is used to describe urban and peri-urban dairy production systems in Addis Ababa. These urban and peri-urban dairy production systems evolved to satisfy the increasing demand for milk in urban centres as a consequence of increasing urbanisation, rising per capita income and increasing cost of imported milk and milk products. They contribute to overall development through income and employment generation, food security, asset accumulation, poverty alleviation and improving human nutrition and health.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
Livestock production is a vital part of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in Kumasi, where many crop farmers benefit from cheap poultry manure available in large quantities. However, with increasing competition for this resource, the manure is seldom stored long enough to prevent the contamination of food and water with pathogens. While the actual incidence of disease related to this contamination has not yet been assessed, interventions to prevent the spread of infection should focus first of all on the consumer household. Farmers' access to clean irrigation water is another important step but only makes sense if farmers' own practices do not contribute to water pollution.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
Kumasi is Ghana's second largest city after Accra and is the capital of the Ashanti Region. Kumasi is located in the south-central part of the country 100 miles inland from the coast and the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) is responsible for a population of some 700,000 to 1 million people. The survey reported here was undertaken as an MSc project by the senior author, in 1999 with the aim of characterising urban livestock keeping in Kumasi and identifying the problems encountered by livestock keepers.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
At the end of the 19th century, Sansón Carrasco (nom de plume of Daniel Muñoz, 1849-1930), reported on pigs being bred with household wastes. His chronicles are still valid today. For instance, in his article "Trash" (1883), he writes:
"...and in the depressions, and on the beach, pigs and more pigs, and always pigs everywhere you look, some of them feeding, some stretched out without a care in the world, others grunting as they get a glimpse of me, as if upset by my intrusion in their domain..."
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
Zoonoses have been defined by WHO (1959) as 'Those disease and infections (the agents of) which are naturally transmitted between (other) vertebrate animals and man'. Recently the concept has been enlarged with the following proposal: 'Any detriment to the health and/or quality of human life deriving from relationships with (other) vertebrate or edible or toxic invertebrate animals', Mantovani 2000).
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
Cysticercosis is one of the most dangerous diseases caused by a parasite that passes from animals to human beings. It is most prevalent in the rural areas of developing countries, from where it can become a threat in urban areas too. Cysticercosis is closely related to economic standards, culture and aspects of hygiene. Latin America, non-Islamic parts of Africa and South East Asia and especially India face major problems with this disease. In this article the author describes cysticercosis that originates from pigs (Cysticercosis cellulosae) in Bolivia, South America.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
Rosario City in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina is an urban centre of more than 1,200,000 inhabitants. Over 20% of the population live in conditions of extreme poverty. Unemployment and marginality leads them to live in the marginal areas, without adequate sanitary services and under limited social and economic conditions. There are many examples of social welfare interventions, which can help to alleviate these conditions of dire poverty.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
Pig-raising in urban areas has become important in meeting the growing pork demand. The main constraints to using sweet potato vines as pig feed are labour and storage. Regardless of how they are fed to the animals, the vines must first be chopped into small pieces, a daunting and time-consuming task, mainly undertaken by women. If the vines are fed fresh, the women must allocate time each day for this task, even during the busy field season. Silage offers a potential alternative and overcomes both main constraints.
In: UA Magazine 2 - Livestock in and around cities
A model for integrated higher education for training veterinary medical-animal husbandry students is discussed. In this model, students analyse local seasonal foodstuffs and immunisation and parasitism, while learning about marginal livestock producer needs. Both the University and the livestock producing families benefit. The former because it uses local resources, and the latter because they increase their knowledge, and use of foodstuffs, and reduce parasitism and, presumably, public health problems too.
The UA-Magazine is published by the Resource Centre for Urban Agriculture (RUAF), a Programme executed by ETC Netherlands and financed by DGIS, The Netherlands and IDRC, Canada. It is published 3 times a year. In future, the UA Magazine will be published in French and Spanish, and distributed, possibly in separate editions, through regional networks.
This issue has been compiled by René van Veenhuizen (responsible editor), with Hans Schiere, WAU, The Netherlands and Azage Tegegne, of ILRI, Ethiopia (guest editors). Further inputs have been received by Willem van Weperen, Sheila Oparachoa, Katrien van ?t Hooft and Ann Waters-Bayer of ETC-Urban Livestock.