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Call for Contributions Urban Agriculture Magazine no. 23

Please click here to read the call for contributions for the next issue of the UA Magazine on Urban Nutrient Management.


African Indigenous Vegetables in Urban Agriculture

Charlie M. Shackleton, Margaret W. Pasquini and Axel W. Drescher
Paperback £24.95, June 2009

African Indigenous Vegetables in Urban Agriculture provides a comprehensive synthesis of current knowledge of the potential and challenges associated with the multiple roles, use, management and livelihood contributions of indigenous vegetables in urban agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on critical analysis of current debates and practices, it presents a multidisciplinary analysis of the realities and future opportunities.

More information about the book is available here. To request a review or inspection copy, and for all queries, please contact andrew.miller@earthscan.co.uk. Download a 20% discount for the book from the website.


 

Healthy city harvests: Generating evidence to guide policy on urban agriculture

Editors: Donald Cole, Diana Lee-Smith and George Nasinyama

This publication presents research results on potential health risks from exposure of crops to urban contaminants and from livestock production as well as the nutritional and food security benefits of urban farming. These results are embedded in the specific policy context of the city of Kampala, Uganda, but the lessons about the links between research results and policy have relevance for cities in other parts of Africa and beyond. The book contains contributions by leading research specialists in the fields of urban agriculture and public health from Uganda and the broader science community. The publication can be downloaded here: http://www.cipotato.org/publications/pdf/004361.pdf.


RUAF-CFF Final report

The RUAF Cities Farming for the Future programme ended in 2008 with very positive results. Activities of RUAF continued in most of the cities in the follow up programme From Seed to Table. The final report, has been finalised and a summary can be found here.


"Urban and peri-urban agriculture for Resilient Cities" (proceedings WUF IV session)

The RUAF Foundation, together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Development Research Centre, Urban Harvest, the Chinese Urban Agriculture Association and the Nanjing Agriculture and Forestry Bureau, organised a session called "Urban and peri-urban agriculture for Resilient Cities (Green, Productive and Socially Inclusive)" during the World Urban Forum of UN Habitat from 3 to 7 November 2008 in Nanjing, China. The conference proceedings , as well as the DVD with main publications of the organisers and the city posters that were presented, are now available online.


Foodprint: Symposium

[26 June, The Hague, The Netherlands]

The Symposium forms the start of Foodprint, a project that will take place over the course of two years and will focus on the influence food can have on the culture, shape and functioning of the city, using The Hague as a case study.  The Symposium offers a varied programme focusing on the important role food can play in the design of a sustainable, healthy and green city, looking at this topic from various angles and disciplines with lectures, presentations and discussions on inspirational ideas from both the Netherlands and abroad. For more information, go to http://www.stroom.nl/activiteiten/lezing_symposium.php?l_id=8102600 or click here to view the programme. Speakers include a.o. Henk de Zeeuw (RUAF), Will Allen (Growing Power), Paula Sobie (SPIN farming) and Christina Kaba (Abalimi Bezekhaya, South Africa).


Food, health and adaptation to climate change in East and Southern Africa
Deadline for submission of concept notes: 30 June 2009, at midnight (Canadian EST)

The Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health Program (Ecohealth www.idrc.ca/ecohealth) of Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC-Canada) is pleased to announce a call for concept notes on food, health and adaptation to climate change. Concept notes should entail research and capacity building activities that use ecosystem approaches to human health to help understand and address health vulnerabilities related to food and nutritional security or food safety arising from climate change and climate variability in eastern and southern Africa. The full Call can be found at http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-5733-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html. All inquiries related to the call should be directed to FS-Africa@idrc.or.ke


Free online distance learning courses on urban agriculture

Please click here to go to the free online version of Course 1: Understanding Urban Agriculture and Course 2: Dimensions of Urban Agriculture.


Women feeding cities – Mainstreaming gender in urban agriculture and food security

Edited by: Alice Hovorka, Henk de Zeeuw and Mary Njenga

This publication analyses the roles of women and men in urban food production, processing and marketing in case studies from 3 development regions and includes field tested guidelines and tools for gender mainstreaming. The publication is based on experiences gained in the context of Urban Harvest, the CGIAR System-wide Initiative on Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture and The Cities Farming for the Future programme of the RUAF Foundation. The book (approx. 370 pages) is published by Practical Action Publishing. For book orders contact Practical Action at publishinginfo@practicalaction.org.uk. From July the book will also be available on the RUAF website.


RUAF Update #11 now online

Please click here for the new issue of the RUAF Update, containing the latest news on the activities of the RUAF partners. Previous versions of the RUAF Update are available here.


UA Magazine no. 21 - Linking Relief, Rehabilitation and Development: A role for urban agriculture

The latest issue of the Urban Agriculture Magazine is now published online.


RUAF From Seed to Table (FSTT) programme

The RUAF Partners have started the new phase of the RUAF programme: From Seed to Table (2009-2010), which builds on the results of the Cities Farming for the Future Programme (2005-2008).


Distance learning course on urban agriculture

Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education and Centre for Studies in Food Security (www.ryerson.ca/foodsecurity), ETC-Urban Agriculture (www.etc-urbanagriculture.org) and RUAF (www.ruaf.org) are offering the following distance learning course on urban agriculture:

Dimensions of Urban Agriculture (CVFN 411) Duration: 42 hours Fee: $474 (Canadian dollars), Schedule: September-December, 2009.
This course describes the dimensions (functions, roles, benefits, potential risks) of urban agriculture and how these complement, supplement, compete with, substitute for, or undermine those provided by other land uses, sectoral activities and actors. The main dimensions covered are: health and food security, socio-cultural dimensions, economic dimensions, and environmental dimensions. Selected well-documented case studies will be used throughout the course to highlight each dimension separately, before bringing them all together. For more information and instructions on enrollment, please visit http://www.ryerson.ca/ce/foodsecurity or contact Reg Noble, Academic Coordinator, E-mail: food@ryerson.ca or rnoble@ryerson.ca.


Towards a Water-Sustainable City of the Future

Please click here to watch this SWITCH video (18 min). "SWITCH is a project supported by the European Commission, a global effort of 33 partners from 15 countries to bring the Water-Sustainable City of the Future one step closer. The SWITCH recipe is a combination of scientific research, innovative technologies and demonstrations in several cities. To find out more about the project, watch the video."