Urban Agriculture Magazine
December 2002, no. 8

Dear Readers

The Electronic Conference on "Agricultural Use of Untreated Urban Wastewater in Low Income Countries", held in June 2002 and organised by RUAF and IWMI was very successful. Raising awareness among farmers, policy-makers, polluters, marketers, consumers and others was seen by many as the immediate and most important strategy to reduce the health risks in most low-income countries (see the summary of the IWMI-RUAF wastewater E-conference held in 2002 on page 4). On the same topic ETC-RUAF with CREPA and CTA organised an expert-workshop with study tour in June 2002 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, while IWMI and IDRC organised a workshop with representatives of WHO, RUAF, IDRC, IWMI and other experts on the subject in Hyderabad in October 2002. This issue of the UA-Magazine includes the experiences discussed and presented at these events. Fifteen articles are presented here and five reports of events.

Wastewater use for livelihood activities in urban and periurban areas is a reality that planners and policy-makers must face. Financial resources should be made available for these institutions to implement appropriate measures to protect and support these livelihoods as well as to improve the health of the environment, the users and the consumers.

The UA-Magazine in Chinese no. 1 has been distributed and no. 2 is in the making. The Arabic version of the UA-Magazine is ready for distribution. The Spanish edition of the UA-Magazine of no. 5 (Methodologies) and 6 (The Transition to Ecological Urban Agriculture) have been published. The French edition of the UA-Magazine no. 4 (Urban Planning) and no. 5 (Methodologies) are distributed.

You are invited to contribute to future issues of the Urban Agriculture Magazine. Articles would ideally be up to 2,500 words in length, and preferably accompanied by illustrations (digital and of good quality), references and an abstract. As suggested by the Editorial Board, we welcome your contributions on any subject. Articles will be examined for selection by the editorial team consisting of the RUAF-based responsible editor and the external scientific advisor/co-editor.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

The Editor