We would like to receive your contribution or suggestions for the next issue of the UA Magazine:
NO. 23: URBAN NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT (DECEMBER 2009)
Deadline for contributions: 15 September 2009
The Urban Agriculture Magazine
The Urban Agriculture Magazine (UA Magazine) facilitates sharing of information on the impacts of urban agriculture, promotes analysis and debate on critical issues for development of the sector, and publishes "good" practices in urban agriculture. The UA Magazine is produced under the RUAF programme From Seed to Table (FStT), funded by DGIS (Netherlands) and IDRC (Canada).
The main aim of the RUAF-FStT programme is to contribute to urban poverty reduction, urban food security, improved urban environmental management, empowerment of urban producers and participatory city governance. It does this by developing capacities of local stakeholders and urban producers in urban agriculture, facilitating participatory and multi-stakeholder policy formulation and action planning on urban agriculture, and stimulating market chain development and organisation of urban producers.
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The UA Magazine is published two times a year on the RUAF website (www.ruaf.org) and in hardcopy version. This English version is translated into Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese and Portuguese.
The UA Magazine welcomes contributions on new initiatives at individual, neighbourhood, city and national levels. Attention is given to technical, socio-economic, institutional and policy aspects of sustainable urban food production, marketing, processing and distribution systems. Although articles on any related issue are welcome and considered for publication, each UA Magazine focuses on a selected theme (for previous issues, visit: www.ruaf.org).
We would like to receive your contributions or suggestions for the next issue of the UA Magazine
No. 23: Urban Nutrient Management (DECEMBER 2009)
Please send us your contribution before: 15 September 2009
Urban food demand, especially for fresh perishable food products, is increasing with population growth. Urban agriculture responds to this demand through intensive and continuous production taking advantage of market proximity. Such intensive production is highly dependent on nutrients and water. Rapidly growing cities face the challenge of providing basic services such as drinking water and sanitation on the one hand, and sustainably managing urban wastes and wastewater on the other. UA Magazine no. 20 focused on water, and the following issue, no. 23, will focus on the equally important aspect of nutrient management.
Especially in an urban environment, many resources are available that can be directly used as sources of nutrients in urban agriculture, most notably organic wastes and wastewater. Urban agriculture takes place in densely populated areas and potential health and environmental risks should be avoided. As high and inappropriate use of agro-chemicals in urban horticulture may pollute ground and water sources and contaminate crops and drinking water, intensive agriculture that applies ecological principles and techniques and makes optimal use of locally available resources should be promoted. By applying ecological principles, soil fertility and overall productivity can be improved and maintained. Moreover, nutrient loops can be closed, especially through safe recycling, and the environmental benefits of urban agriculture can be enhanced. There is a close relationship between resource (nutrients) use and disposal patterns of a city, as cities depend on sinks outside their boundaries. Agriculture is a key sector for understanding the cycling of macro-nutrients like phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. Related agricultural activities include the use of fertilisers, compost, excreta or domestic or agro-industrial wastes such as soil conditioners, mulches or blending materials. With the rapid increase in prices for fertilisers and a dwindling phosphate market, the need for alternative sources of fertiliser materials is becoming more and more important.
In the development of this issue, RUAF will collaborate with WASTE advisers on urban environment and development. WASTE has more than 25 years of experience in the field of waste management and sanitation, and uses the concept that waste has an economic, environmental and social value. If it is managed properly, waste can generate employment, provide an income and help improve people's livelihoods. If it is reused, waste, can contribute to a better environment by saving materials, nutrients and energy. The same concept is applied in sanitation. In sustainable sanitation systems the whole chain from toilet, transport, treatment and reuse is included.
We are interested in receiving your articles and well-documented experiences regarding nutrient management in urban agriculture. Topics could include: - Urban nutrient cycles and methodologies to calculate inputs and outputs, and material / nutrient cycles in urban agriculture.
- The role of urban agriculture in waste management: safe re-use of urban organic wastes and urban wastewater, and the recycling of nutrients.
- The role of urban agriculture in reducing the city’s nutrient footprint, and in decentralised systems of nutrient recycling (closing the loop).
- Experiences with eco-intensive agriculture in an urban context.
- Different types of composting and its contribution to closing the nutrients cycles, reasons for composting and the marketability of compost.
- The role of institutions (including micro-enterprises) in the waste management and urban agriculture chain, and policies in enhancing nutrient recycling.
Please clarify in your article the concepts used, the relation with urban agriculture, and also present where these experiences were gained and the main actors, impacts, related costs, problems/challenges encountered and solutions found, the major lessons learned and recommendations for both practitioners and planners or policy makers.
Articles
Articles should consist of no more than 2000 words (three pages), 1300 words (two pages) or 600 words (one page), preferably accompanied by an abstract, a maximum of 5 references, and 2-3 digital images or photographs of good quality (more than 300 dpi or in jpg format more than 1 Mb preferably).The articles should be written in a manner that is readily understood by a wide variety of stakeholders all over the world.
Other information on the subject
We also invite you to submit information on recent publications, journals, videos, photographs, cartoons, letters, technology descriptions and assessments, workshops, training courses, conferences, networks, web-links, etc., especially those relating to this theme.
The UA Magazine in 2010
In 2010 two issues of the UA Magazine will be produced. Your contributions and suggestions are most welcome. No. 24 will focus on : “Linking Urban Producers to Markets: Chain development for urban agricultural products”, Deadline for your contribution is 1 March 2010
All other suggestions and comments on UA Magazine are also welcome. Please take a moment to voice your opinion by sending an e-mail to the editor at ruaf@etcnl.nl, or write a letter to:
The Editor UA Magazine
RUAF, ETC Foundation
PO Box 64
3830 AB Leusden
The Netherlands
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