This DVD contains an 18 min video on a study visit to Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. The video is produced by ETC Urban Agriculture, CTA and The Peoples Garden Centre.

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.

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.

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.

Connect Nutrition was founded to address the need for unique and innovative solutions to solve problems of inadequate nutrition, hunger, and food insecurity. Connect Nutrition works with organizations to create and develop policies, conduct research, and create nutrition programs meeting the needs of a variety of communities, particularly low-income populations. They offer various services such as technical assistance and monitoring and evaluation.

Olufunke O. Cofie¹, Rene van Veenhuizen² and Pay Drechsel¹

Paper presented at the Africa session of 3rd WWF, Kyoto, 17th March 2003

¹International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Ghana Office, Accra
²RUAF, ETC, Leusden, The Netherlands

H. de Zeeuw

Key note paper for the International Conference ”Urban Agriculture, Agro-tourism and City Region Development”, Beijing, 10-14 October, 2004

George Danso and Paule Moustier

In: Cities Farming for the Future - Urban Agriculture for Green and Productive Cities

This chapter deals with the socio-economic impact of urban agriculture on income generation, poverty alleviation, urban food supply, livelihoods, as well as indirect costs and benefits for society including environmental externalities. Two levels of analysis are considered to assess this impact: the household and the city. The assessment of social and economic impact at the city level suffers more from lack of data than is the case at the household level. A main question is whether urban agriculture should be seen as an informal, residual, subsistence activity or as one that can shift from simple to enlarged reproduction of urban food, by making the best of its proximity to urban consumers and sustaining incomes in the long run.

Jac Smit and Martin Bailkey

In: Cities Farming for the Future - Urban Agriculture for Green and Productive Cities

The worldwide practice of urban agriculture has shown itself to be anoften-successful model for the inclusion of different urban subcommunities into an intentional social organisation typically focused on producing the necessary resource of food. But the general value of urban agriculture as a means of achieving several other community objectives – in building community capital – is of equal significance. This chapter suggests how community capital is composed of seven dimensions, each of which is commonly addressed in some way through the practice of urban agriculture. The multi-faceted character of successful community-based urban agriculture examples is based upon the addressing of one or more of these seven dimensions to create a place-based form of grassroots community development, while also involving representatives of often-marginalised subgroups, such as women, youth and the poor.

René van Veenhuizen

In: Cities Farming for the Future - Urban Agriculture for Green and Productive Cities

Attention to urban agriculture has increased markedly during the last couple of decades. The number of activities to promote urban agriculture at international, national and local level has grown, but urban farmers in many cities in the world still struggle to get their main survival strategy recognised by city authorities. The demand of policy makers and local practitioners for inspiring examples of successful policies and actions in cities is therefore growing. Urban agriculture contributes to a wide variety of urban issues and is increasingly being accepted and used as a tool in sustainable city development. Currently the challenge is its integration into city planning and facilitation of its multiple benefits for urban inhabitants. This book seeks to present the current state of affairs regarding urban agriculture and sustainable urban development.