Robert J. Holmer, Gina S. Itchon

In: UA Magazine no. 20 - Water for Urban Agriculture, pp. 44-46

Shortly after the first community-based allotment gardens were established for urban poor families of Cagayan de Oro, Philippines (Holmer & Drescher, 2005), one of the constraints observed was the lack of sanitary toilet facilities inside the gardens. A sustainable solution to address this sanitation problem had to be found, especially since these gardens are considered as showcases for integrated solid waste management, including the composting of segregated biodegradable wastes from the garden and neighbouring households (Urbine et al, 2005)

Linus Dagerskog, Simeon Kenfack and Håkan Jönsson

In: UA Magazine no. 20 - Water for Urban Agriculture, pp. 41-43

Robert Gensch

In: UA Magazine no. 20 - Water for Urban Agriculture, pp. 38-40

Currently some estimated 854 million people worldwide are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty; and about 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty (FAO 2006). Despite the great efforts and promising attempts being made to decrease the number of people suffering from food insecurity, this numer still remains high worldwide and will most likely intensify in the coming decades, due to the growing world population. A great deal of this population growth will take place in cities, causing a substantial increase in the volume of urban waste products, the over-exploitation of rural resources and a significant increase in urban food demand. Developing countries are particularly affected by the rampant urbanisation tendencies and face great difficulties in coping with this development.

Sara Finley

In: UA Magazine no. 20 - Water for Urban Agriculture, p. 37

Urban food production is quickly gaining popularity in Canadian cities, where community gardens are thriving and backyard or balcony cultivation is widespread. However, the desire to produce local food must be compensated by responsible water us if the practice is to be sustainable. Garden watering can account for more than 40 percent of household water use during the summer months, and wasteful irrigation practices are often the norm in Canadian cities.

Priyanie Amerasinghe, Charles Devenish, KB Sulemani

In: UA Magazine no. 20 - Water for Urban Agriculture, pp. 34-36

Agriculture in and around Indian cities is under pressure due to rapid urbanisation and associated land use change, and couples with pressure on already scarce water resources. The major beneficiaries of UA in the larger cities are low-income communiies that make use of the available resources - vacant land, river banks and wastewater - to supplement their meagre incomes. Rainwater is a valuable potential resource, and government attention to rainwater harvesting is growing, but its potential for UA is still poorly understood and documented.

Matthew Lief

In: UA Magazine no.20 Water for Urban Agriculture

Mubvami, T., P. Toriro

In: UA Magazine no. 20 Water for Urban Agriculture

Lesley Hope

In: UA Magazine no. 20 - Water for Urban Agriculture, pp. 29-30

Owing to the importance of irrigated urban vegetable farming in Ghana, a number of research and development activities have been recently initiated to improve the safety of vegetables. The positive and negative impacts of these initiatives have already been widely documented (UA Magazine no. 8 and the article in no. 19 on this issue). This paper describes a number of low-cost risk-reduction interventions developed together with key stakeholders in the "farm to fork" continuum.

Kafui Adjaye-Gbewonyo

In: UA Magazine no. 20 - Water for Urban Agriculture, pp. 27-28

As safe water sources become scarcer and more polluted, the use of wastewater in urban agriculture may produce many benefits but may also lead to crop and soil contamination and endanger farmers and consumers. To effectively manage wastewater use in agriculture, it is important to understand how stakeholders feel impacted by the practice.

Modeste L. Kinané, Arlette Tougma, Denis Ouédraogo, Moise Sonou

In: UA Magazine no. 20 - Water for Urban Agriculture, pp. 25-26

Many studies have pointed out the health risks associated with inappropriate use of untreated wastewater or polluted water for both consumers and farmers in urban vegetable production in Burkina Faso. But this is a reality in daily life, and at this point understanding farmers' strategies is critical for implementing measures to make irrigation practices safer.