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A P O N D E R I N G PA N D I T J I
Dear Gobar Times Readers, at the role of the modern city farmers.

D O W N

T O

E A R T H

S U P P L E M E N T

MARCH 15, 2004

NO. 40

Is your city a dead end in terms of what you consume or is it a living urban landscape that reuses and recycles all materials in a productive and efficient fashion just like an healthy ecosystem? Imagine edible cities, with vast areas of agricultural plots, rooftop and terrace farms, parkland that grows fruits and vegetables in every available space. Urban Agriculture (UA) is a growing international movement. In a sense people are rediscovering what the poor farmers of traditional rural and urban societies have always been practicing. And its not just a romantic idea of beautifying cities with exotic plants. Its dead serious business of providing food and jobs to poor people and managing the enormous waste generated in cities across the developing world. No wonder successful city farmers refer to their line of work as political horticulture! UA makes ecological sense, does it make economic sense in a country like India where farmers, buffeted by global economic forces, are committing suicide and dumping tomatoes on the road to protest against falling prices of their produce? GT takes a look Pandit Gobar Ganesh

CITY FARMER

Edible Cities
Dear Cityfolk, here's why you need to grow food at home

e cityfolk consider ourselves to be very supermarkets of employment, technology and smart. Not so, discovers Gobar Times. processors of agriculture produce. Precious farmThe modern city has a garangutan lands are being lost all over the world to these ever appetite and is frightfully wasteful. It takes more expanding cities. Who will feed these millions of than it gives. It ingests tonnes and tonnes of cereals, cityfolk? meat, vegetables and fruits grown in rural areas far and wide; chomps, chews and digests all that food- City as an ecosystem stuff; converts some of it into human energy; burps, In a healthy ecosystem, nutrients are largely recyand then spews the remaining all out as organic cled. The urban ecosystem, however, is a dead end. garbage and sewage. Nutrients in That means depletion of resources in this waste that should have been Before the railroads, areas outside the city and poisoning recycled back to the land that proof places within it. Writes Toni the internal duced the food, is instead dumped combustion engine, Nelson, a researcher at the World into and sealed in landfills or leaked Watch Institute in Washington, "This cold storage, into rivers. Smart idea? massive shifting of nutrients from perishable foods rural to urban areas has already Vanishing croplands had to be produced diminished the vitality of many of the With more and more people heading planet's most productive croplands, within the towards urban areas and the number grazing lands, and fisheries, and the city limits itself. of cities increasing dramatically, process could accelerate as more and something will have to be done more of the human population about these wasteful consumption habits. concentrates in cities in the coming decades. It is It is estimated that by 2030, 60 per cent of the also creating a dilemma: how to feed the growing world's population will live in cities. During the number of people who are far removed form rural-urban population shift the cities have become their main sources of food, without unbalancing
66 Gobar Times, March 15, 2004, Down To Earth supplement

CIP

COVER STORY
and collapsing the ecosystems on which those majority of people who arrive in the city become part of large squatter settlements within the city limits, it is people ultimately depend." Thats where Urban Agriculture (UA) helps. UA challenging city managers to assist the newcomers with puts vacant unused urban land to good productive jobs, shelter, social services, and proper environment. use. All the rubbish like discarded containers, empty Thats why urban cultivation has been rediscovered in tins, plastic bags, styrofoam boxes along with developing world cities, in recent years. Toni Nelson in the World Watch unutilised terraces, rooftops and balMagazine again, "Political leaders have conies become the 'fields' on which For the rich, been slow to recognise and respond to crops can be grown. Biodegradable growing your own this dilemma. But in many cities resiwaste becomes organic fertiliser after food is in part a dents are not waiting. Both with and composting. That means less garbage, luxury and a without official sanction, millions of less pollution and more food. Besides welcome change people are now producing food right producing affordable nutritious foodfrom supermarket where they livein empty lots, on stuff for the urban poor in developing shopping. But for the rooftops, and in their own backyards." countries, UA also generates more poor, it is often a Estimates say that as many as 200 milemployment within the city. Smart idea! necessity. lion people are engaged in UA the world over. Half of Latin American Agriculture, an urban invention? cities and 40 per cent of African ones Cities and farming have an ancient are involved in urban agriculture. In relationship. The idea of farming in Russia, 72% of all urban households cities might seem strange initially to our raise food and in China, the 14 largest urban ears. In the classic The Economy cities produce around 85 per cent of of Cities, Jane Jacobs argues that agritheir vegetables. culture is actually an urban invention, developed in cities which were first Want to be a city farmer? founded as centres of trade. As the

Why farm the city?


To mitigate the two most intractable problems facing Third World cities poverty and waste management.

GREATER FOOD SECURITY: City produce supplements rural agriculture and helps avoid food shortages. A step towards sustainable food management. LESS WASTE: Cities produce a lot of solid and liquid organic waste. This resource can be recycled to grow food, thus reducing garbage and pollution in the city.

LESS FOOD MILES: Cities import food products at great distances, thereby increasing energy use and decreasing nutrition. Growing food in the city reduces the food miles from the land to the mouth.
G

MORE INCOME: Poor families can supplement their income by practising urban agriculture and middle class families can look to it as a form of business.

GOOD FOR THE SOUL: Believe it or not, but gardening at home has been known to strengthen family ties. Thanks to community farming in the city, neighbourhoods have become socially cohesive and crime has reduced.

Gobar Times, March 15, 2004 Down To Earth supplement

67

LATIN AMERICA

"The main task of the revolution should be to produce food."


Cuban general Sio Wong

Pushed to a corner, three Latin American countries resort to urban agriculture local, organic.

ill 1989, the USSR cities with organic, powered the Cuban economy. The Russians hydroponic sold Cuba oil at a discount and mini-gardens!" bought sugar from it at five Hugo Chavez, times the market rate. In fact president of Venezuela from 1959, when communist Fidel Castro came to power to 1989, when the communist to several hectares, which regime collapsed in Moscow, are cultivated by individuals 85 per cent of Cuba's trade or community groups. was with the USSR. The city now aims at Then in 1992, America feeding itself entirely withslapped a trade embargo. out imports from either rural By conventional economics, Cuba or anywhere else in the Cuba should have just world. Today, Havana rightly Organoponic gardening collapsed. But it responded to claims to be the leader of is taking root in central Caracas urban agriculture in the the crisis by restructuring it's agriculture in the country. world. amid the piles of garbage, Pesticides and fertiliser bands of homeless beggars. stocks dwindled. Oil was in The gardens of Peru short supply. Transportation, With 7 million citizens, capirefrigeration and storage costs had to be reduced and tal Lima houses 30 per cent of Peru. The city was 2.5 million strong Havana had to be fed. groaning thanks to rapid growth. UA was used as an The Cubans found answers to these problems in instrument to improve the living conditions of the urban agriculture. The people took the situation into urban poor. their own hands and started gardening in their homes Slums started growing food in a bid to feed themon a massive scale. The Urban Agriculture Ministry selves and generate income by sell extra produce. decided to back the urban farmers and made it a poli- After that, gardens were established in household cy of putting all the city's open land into production. plots, schools, hospitals and public spaces. The gardens of Havana are small parcels of No chemicals were used as fertiliser and solid state-owned land, ranging from a few square meters waste was used to produce compost, pests were
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"Let's sow our

POLITICAL HORTICULTURE
Hydroponics: The cultivation of plants by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil; soil-less growth of plants. Aeroponics: A technique for growing plants without soil or hydroponic media. The plants are held above a system that constantly mists the roots with nutrientladen water. Also called aeroculture. (See diagram below) Organoponics: A term peculiar to Latin America. It was originally the hydroponic systems converted to organic cultivation by replacing the inert medium with compost made from sugar waste. controlled using domestic methods. The women converted household leftovers, chicken and guinea pig dung to manure. Wastewater was used where there were water shortages. Venezuela's choice Venezuela is relatively well-off and rich in resources. But it decided to take inspiration from Cuba and practice UA in a bid to prevent food shortages and be less dependent on imports. Traditionally, more than half of the country's food needs are imported. Organoponic gardening (See box) is taking root in central Caracas amid piles of garbage, bands of homeless beggars, and tens of thousands of vehicles belching out polluting gas fumes. Inside Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters, soldiers of the crack Ayala armoured battalion supervised by Cuban instructors have swapped their rifles for shovels and hoes to tend neat rows of lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, coriander, and parsley.

FLOATING PLATFORM WITH PLANTS

AIR PUMP AIR LINE AIRSTONE

A Cuban revolution
If it was the socialist revolution of the fifties that changed the face of Cuba, it was the UA revolution of the nineties that transformed Cubas economy, bringing with it, its own In 1999, urban Cuba produced vocabulary. 65% OF ITS RICE Before 1989, 46% OF ITS FRESH VEGETABLES UA was virtually 38% OF ITS NON-CITRUS FRUITS, of compost to soil and run either through a unheard of in state institution or by private individuals. Havana, which is 13% OF ITS ROOTS, TUBERS & PLANTAINS home to 20 per Autoconsumos: Gardens and small cent of Cubas 6% OF ITS EGGS farms belonging to and producing food population. But today organoponics and hydroponics are for workers, usually supplying cafeterias of buzzwords and the mushrooming farms and particular workplaces. gardens of the capital are divided into five main Campesinos particulars: Individual small plots categories: cultivated by farmers, largely working in the greenbelt around the city. Huertos populares (popular gardens): Gardens privately cultivated by urban residents in Empresas estatales: Large farms run as state small areas throughout Havana. enterprises, many with increasing decentralisation, autonomy, and degrees of profit sharing with Huertos intensivos (intensive gardens): Gardens cultivated in raised beds with a high ratio workers.

Gobar Times, March 15, 2004 Down To Earth supplement

69

FOOD MILES
Food in the United States travels an average of 2000 kms and changes hands half a dozen times before it is consumed (The Packer, 1992)
How much distance does your food travel from the land where it was produced, into the marketplace, to the corner store, before it reaches your plate? If food products must travel 2000 kms, they must be sufficiently durable to withstand shipping. That, at the cost of palatability and nutritional content. The denatured, deflavored, industrial tomato is but the best known exemplar of a process that has affected many fruits and vegetables. These processed foods depend on artificial colours, flavours, stabilizers, emulsifiers, sweeteners and preservatives. Lets get closer to our food chain by growing within the city itself. Urban agriculture gives the city a chance to close the ecosystem loop and move towards sustainable cities. And lets also consume fresher and more nutritious food.
Source: www.sustainweb.org

FOOD SHED
To describe sustainable food systems, defining the origins and destinations of food within a particular bioregion the food shed helps one to visualise the actual ecological impact of what we eat. The foodshed concept uses the analogy of a watershed to describe the area that is defined by a structure of supply. Food comes to most of us now through a global food system, which is destructive of both natural and social communities. While corporations which are the principal beneficiaries of a global food system now dominate the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food, alternatives are emerging which together could form the basis for foodshed development. For example In a New York supermarket, you can find tomatoes from Mexico, grapes from Chile, lettuce from California, apples from New Zealand. But the chances of finding city-grown tomatoes, grapes, lettuce, strawberries, or apples in the same supermarket is pretty dim, even when those crops are in season locally. What is eaten by the great majority of North Americans comes from a global everywhere! And metropolitan India is fast catching up.
Source: www.foodshed.wisc.edu

FOOD CIRCLE
The Food Circle is a production-consumption-recycle model. A celebration of cycles, this model mirrors all natural systems and is based on the fact that all stable, biological and other systems function as closed cycles or circles, carefully preserving energy, nutrients, resources and the integrity of the whole. It links the many people involved in food production together in interdependent, holistic ways. When we conceive of our food system as a circle, we acknowledge that we are connected with every other person in that circle through the act of food production. Practically, a Food Circle is concerned with promoting the consumption of safe, regionally grown food that will encourage sustainable agriculture and help to maintain farmers, who will sustain rural areas. The goal of a Food Circle is to develop a communitybased, sustainable food system by reshaping the relationships that surround food. Our dominant food system is globalized and industrialized, while Food Circles seek to create a personalized and sustainable food system. The Food Circle philosophy is built on four fundamental principles borrowed from Green thinking and systems theory. In sum, a Food Circle is about knowing the person who grows our food or who eats the food we grow.
Source: Food Circle Networking Project: http://foodcircles.missouri.edu

WHERE ON EARTH DID THIS COME FROM?

The distance from which their food comes represents their separation from the knowledge of how and by whom what they consume is produced, processed, and transported.

Dependence on a globalised food economy is also disconnecting us from nature.


MADE IN INDIA!

London citys ecological footprint is 125 times its surface area, requiring the equivalent of the entire productive area of Britain to sustain itself each year
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AMIT SHANKER / CSE

RUHANI KAUR / CSE

ASIA

Asian feedback
Waste of ducks, chickens, pigs, cows, humans, have all been traditionally used in Asian towns and cities to grow food. Asians are learning from their past for food security in the future.
Young city farmers hard at work at a organic farm in Singapore

HONG KONG
Regarded as one of the densest large cities in the world, it produces within its boundaries two-thirds of the poultry and close to half of the vegetables eaten by its citizens and visitors. All the nutrients taken to produce the food are returned back to the city food ecosystem as the duck and chicken waste are used as fertilisers for the growing of vegetables.

Aeroponics has been tipped as one of the most appropriate technologies for urban agriculture and microfarming in warm climates.

PHILIPPINES
The early people of Manila were self-reliant in food. They used to fish and grow food crops along banks of the river, evidence of the earliest forms of urban agriculture. Today, nearly one-third of children in Metro Manila are underweight and one-fifth have stunted growth and are suffering due to undernutrition. Growing vegetable crops in recycled tin or plastic containers placed in the yard, on windowsills, and on rooftops is helping address undernutrition.

SINGAPORE
The city farms between the high rise buildings, in its suburban areas and the surrounding seas. Citizens of Singapore consuming 70 kg per capita per year are self-reliant in the meat supply. Since 1974, mushrooms have been grown on multistory stacking shelves using composts from agricultural waste such as banana leaves and straw. Currently only 5 per cent of the 1,000 tonnes of vegetables eaten here daily are grown locally. Malaysia supplies 45 per cent of the demand, while the rest comes from Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and even far away Europe. What does the city need to grow its own food? Just a little water, no soil. Singapore's first commercial aeroponics farm has arrived. Pioneers in this this farm use aeroponics technology to grow vegetables.
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INDONESIA
Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia houses almost 10 million people. Unable to feed the city, most of the food consumed is imported from the satellite cities. Urban farming spread quickly as a result of this crisis. Urban agriculture provides workers, landowners and other people involved, with a small but significant income to support families at home, daily expenses as well as expenses like school fees. Vegetables like spinach, lettuce and cabbage are sown and all crops

INDIA
are harvested. Homegardens (kitchen, dooryard or backyard gardens) are commonly found in many parts of Indonesia. It typically has a very high diversity of useful plants and animals. These multi crop household gardens produce three times the money value per unit of land as three-crop rice farming.

Kolkata Catch!
In India, human waste and wastewater reuse in agriculture is an age-old tradition. West Bengal has 279 wastewater fed farms on an area of 4000 hectares, supplying more than 13,000 tonnes of fish per year. It is perhaps one of the largest wastewater fed fish farming systems in the world. This form of farming was started way back during Second World War and even today supplies a city with more than 14 million people their daily demand for fish at the same time supports the livelihoods of more than 30,000 people. The pond farms different species of fish from local species rohu, catla to exotic fishes and freshwater prawns as well. The city sewage is first treated through RANU GHOSH / CSE different methods developed by the fishermen over the years. Fish yields from wastewater ponds are 2-4 times higher than those from ordinary fish. The city gets its fish supply, the city sewage gets solved, recovery of nutrients that would otherwise have been lost in wastewater.

INDIA
Mumbai city farmer, Dr R T Doshi, began experimenting with food production on the terrace of his bungalow in Mumbai after retiring at the age of 61. He has perfected a method of growing fruits and vegetables for domestic consumption, which involves relatively low labour input, organic production methods and very high yields. Today he grows vegetables, pulses, fruits and cereals and has raised mango, fig and guava plants and also harvested bananas and sugarcane on his terrace farm. The method involves planting in

Dr R T Doshi at his terrace farm

Fish produced from city sewage in Kolkata

polyethylene bags or 45 gallon drums with the floating gardens that carry out vegetable farming. The bottoms stuffed with biomass, such as sugarcane gardens have been believed to have existed over several stocks from sugarcane juice vendors (something that generations and have been the source of food for the normally goes to waste). One quarter of the bag is city and source of livelihood for the urban farmers. It is a type of water culture where weed rafts of then filled with compost and the remainder with soil. different lengths floating on the lake are covered The system is suitable for any scale of operation in any with thick layers of soil. The weed, over a period of open space. His methods have been adopted throughout Mumbai and also in neighbouring cities, gardens, time, decomposes to function as the fertiliser for the and improving local environments, family nutrition vegetables to be grown in the floating gardens including tomato, pumpkin, cucumber, and public health overall. Srinagars Dal lake houses acres of UA gives the city a radish and lots of other vegetables. lotus plants in full bloom across its wet- chance to close the Although the practice has been there for many years, today when there is land ecosystem. It is not just a beautiful ecosystem loop and high militancy in the area, vegetable or flower but also food. Lotus is harvested for move towards lotus farming is the only choice of its stems called nadru which are eaten all sustainable cities income for many in the city. round the year. The lake is famous for its
Gobar Times, March 15, 2004 Down To Earth supplement 73

HISTORY

Modern colonial cities were planned and managed to have food production on the outskirts of the city using "modern" agriculture and producing "European" crops. The great Scottish urban thinker, Patrick Geddes, condemned these when he visited the city of Indore in India during the First World War: "from the callous, contemptuous city bureaucrat at Delhi, I have now to tackle here the well-intentioned fanatic of sanitation-perhaps an even tougher proposition. Instead of the 19th century European panacea of "Everything to the sewer!"the right maxim for India is the traditional rural one of

"Everything to the soil!"

rban agriculture (UA) gained importance in the 1980s throughout the world with almost a three-fold increase in Moscow, Russia and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and other cities of Africa as massive shifts of urban land from open space, institutional and transportation was used for agricultural production. In the poorest of poor countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, three of every five families in towns and cities are engaged in urban agriculture. The trend also spread to cities such as Bangkok where 60% of the land was farmed. Throughout the world there is a long tradition of farming intensively in the cities. In all parts of the world, ancient civilisations developed urban agricultural systems to feed the cities. Examples include Ghana, India, China, Iraq, Java, Pakistan, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru. The intensive production of perishables, small livestock, fish and poultry within the city was essential to city life. Grains, fruits and vegetables were shipped from the nearby countryside. In certain cultures crops such as mushrooms and medicinal and culinary herbs were specially developed in urban areas. In Latin America, Aztec, Mayan and Incan cities were self-reliant in perishable fruits and vegetables but also raised some grains within the confined hinterland. Similarly towns and cities of early civilisations of Java and Indus valley show traces of high-intensity irrigated
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farming systems. The Javanese aqua-terra system combining multi-crop water system and soil farming systems have still survived in some areas. Like the Aztec aqua-terra chinampas in Mexico. At Tenochititlan, the site of Mexico city today, the Spanish invaders in the 15th century found the largest city they had known at the time. A principal source of food production was a form of aqua-terra farming known as chinampas. Irrigation systems helped farmers to produce three crops a year in areas that today give only two crops. These city farmers also had sophisticated methods of soil improvement and insect control. Manula describe the use of human and animal waste in mixture with other waste materials to be used as inputs in agriculture. Cities' wastewater flowed into tanks and from tanks to irrigate fields. Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Inca appears to have been self-sufficient in food within walking distance. The main city also had a suburban area that carried out intensive agriculture. In the ancient systems various techniques such as sun reflectors in Tigris and Euphrates were used to heat the soil. At Machu Picchu standing water of aqua-terra systems held off mountain frost. In Bolivia today the suns heat is stored in the adobe walls of the greenhouse even today. Cultures throughout history have used their dwellings, workplaces, and communal spaces to produce food and

ECOCITY
other basic needs. In Yemen, for example, some towns and cities have integrated high-rise architecture with organic urban gardens over the last two thousand years. These gardens use traditional techniques of stacking layers of shrubs, vegetables, herbs and root crops under a canopy of date palms mimicking the ecological structure of natural forests. In Europe compost using horse manure has been used over the years to heat raised vegetable beds. Before modern urban sanitation systems were developed in the late 19th century, urban agriculture was the main treatment and disposal of urban waste. Food was delivered by donkey carts to the markets and the by straw mats used to cover the crops during severe winter. 50 kg of per capita of fresh salads, vegetables and fruits were produced annually which exceeded the levels of consumption of these foods. Products were exported to as far as London. The system reached its maximum peak in the plate 19th century, its rapid decline can be explained by three factors: the virtual replacement of the horse by the motor car, competition for land within the city and competition from areas with more favourable climate outside the city-facilitated by the improvement in the transport system. This system of cultivation remains one of the most productive ones ever

>> The struggle to sanitise the cities has been waged for more than a decade now. But the systems are unsustainable because they shift increasing volumes of waste from one location to another within the urban ecosystem >>

ARVIND YADAV / CSE

city wastes in turn were delivered to the fields both rural and urban. For example, the Marais farming system of 19th century Paris. 100 years ago a sixth of the area of Paris was used to produce annually more than 100,000 tonnes of high-value of of season salad crops. A sustainable cropping pattern as it used approximately 1 million tones of stable manure produced each year by horses, which provided power for the city's transport system. This system became famous in Europe in the late 19th century that very intensive horticulture using heavy inputs of biological origin is still called French gardening today. In energy, mass and money terms the inputs and output of the Parisian urban agro-ecosystem exceed those of present day fully industrialised crop production. In this system 3-6 harvests a year were obtained through inter-cropping. Year round production was made possible by the heat and carbon dioxide released through the manure fermentation, shelter by two-metre high walls, glass-covered frames and bell-shaped glass and

PRADIP SAHA / CSE

documented. The productive biological recycling of waste products of the city's transport system contrasts with requirements and consequences of the present day urban ecosystems. But today the accepted idea has become the the city beautiful or the city clean. Modern agricultural ways have replaced the traditional ones in many developing cities. But there is quite revolution coming about as there are many cities who are in a process to adopt the biointensive marai system. The struggle to sanitise the cities has been waged for more than a decade now. But the systems are unsustainable because they shift increasing volumes of waste from one location to another within the urban ecosystem. With multiplication of urban populations and the food systems becoming more unreliable urban hunger multiplied with urban growth. In response UA became the solution to the city. (Taken from the book, Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities, UNDP)
Gobar Times, March 15, 2004 Down To Earth supplement 75

EDUCATION

City farms provide children an opportunity to learn about ecology and create their own

"Living laboratories"
C
ommunity gardens and school gardens. Recreation and education. Food for the soul and food for thought. At the start of the last century, almost 80 percent of the population were raised on farms. What a reality teacher! Now cityfolk in both the developed and developing world are recognising the values and ethics of an agrarian lifestyle. City gardens can aid both urban planners and educators.
LEARNING FROM SCHOOL GARDENS

We do it together In community gardens people SCIENCE: ecological literacy share land to grow plants, ECONOMICS: rural and urban exchange resources, socialise and cultivate a sense of "comPOLITICS: rich vs poor munity". Empty lots, apartment HEALTH: nutritious food complexes ground or land next We all learn together to social centres, land near temART: aesthetics Growing children and growing ples, mosques and churches can plants gel well together. It helps be converted to community gardens. These gardens become valuable green spaces in them understand the connection between their health, the food they eat, and where it comes from. In densely populated neighborhoods. Such gardens are mushrooming even in the addition to that they learn plant science and ecology. US. Local residents, tired of vacant land, trash, and School gardens have been known to increase their crime are transforming vacant lots into community confidence levels too. Through simple science experigreen spaces with vegetables, flowers, sitting ments and hands-on activities, schoolchildren are able areas and playgrounds. It is estimated that there are to see, smell, taste and touch plants. Many of our schools offer students cold, concrete 15000 organised community gardens in the US. A reason for their growing popularity is that school yards with chain link fences that make schools they address the unique needs of the particular look more like prisons. By transforming the school ground to include nature, the learning opportunities neighborhood.
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Towards sustainability Also, many such gardens are environmentally sound. That's because community gardeners are often immigrants from developing countries or rural areas. In some cases, they can't afford commercial fertilisers and pesticides. So, they practice sustainable ways of adding nutrients (composting and intercropping), conserving water (mulching, mounds and furrows), and controlling pests (like the use of marigolds to repel nematodes, use of soap solutions in place of commercial pesticides). Rural gardeners retain traditional practices that were developed before industrial agriculture.

NUTRITION
literally come alive. Schools need to redesign their play space to provide students with a healthy and safe place to play, learn, and develop a genuine respect for nature and each other. School gardens can become mini-farms and a source of healthy, nutritious food, an opportunity for environmental restoration and a well of inspiration for children, teachers and parents. School yards are an amazing land resource but, often neglected. Also, educators say that outdoor classrooms are a priority. Students use outdoor classrooms to explore various outdoor themes like the weather. Stepping outside the classroom to answer a question, plant seeds, or observe insects on flowers not only adds variety to the curriculum, but also motivates many students who are less engaged in the usual class routines. Students who strain to sit still in class may be captivated and stimulated watching a beetle make its way through a just-turned pile of dirt. When students have the opportunity to ask their own questions about things that interest them and discover the answers, they are taking vital steps to becoming lifelong learners.

Animation playgrounds
Extracts from a report based on research done by Oliver Ginsberg, Chairperson of the Association of Adventure Playgrounds and Cityfarms (AKiB) in Berlin, on ninety such projects across six countries in Europe what they contribute to sustainable urban development:
It was the Danish landscape architect C. Th. Sorensen who first recognized the importance of "skrammellegepladsen" (rubbish playgrounds), which should give children access to various construction play materials and the possibility to create their own play environment rather then provide them with already furnished, neat play sites. In the official programmes of sustainable development children and young people are obviously neglected. Within the 500 pages of the "Agenda 21" the world "child" or "children" appears just about 60 times, while the word "government" is used more than 1000 times! They are usually just mentioned in connection with social infrastructure like schools or day care centers. Their specific (play) needs are hardly mentioned, neither their need for open space within the city. The fact that adequate play space tends to

"For more than ten thousand years, cultivation of land and the rearing of farm animals was a "natural" part of civilization. Farming is the root of the urbanisation process, the dynamics of which in turn has driven farming out of our daily experiences."
Teaching sustainability Children are also introduced directly to the impacts of our present global food production and delivery systems. They'll understand depletion of ecologicallyproductive lands for the purpose of growing cash crops, pesticide, energy and water use, transportation, climate change, international trade routes, nutrition, global economics and social justice issues much better. School gardens saves urban children from being detached from the food chain. For example in 2003, the Japan Slow Food Association asked 100,000 kids to paint pictures to decorate the dinner table. Few of them drew real vegetables and fish. Most drew pictures of the plastic containers that line the shelves of grocery stores. Now that wouldnt happen if you had a small garden with vegetables in your school yard. disappear from the cities even within the frame of "vitalization" and "interior development" simply has no impact on the minds of many political decision makers. This kind of play deprivation however is a very important part of the reason for increasing health problems and juvenile violence as has paradoxically been acknowledged most strongly in the US lately. The fact, that the contributions of adventure playgrounds and city farms to sustainable development are still underestimated in the public perhaps coincides with the fact, that children and their way of life which is inevitably playful are themselves restricted to the parts of "extras" in the debate on sustainability. They are often reduced to some anonymous upgrowing or future generations and their specific (play) needs and rights are hardly ever adequately addressed or, if their needs are articulated, it is usually done in such a general way that hardly any definite conclusions can be drawn therefrom as far as urban planning is concerned, which should adjust to these needs.
Gobar Times, March 15, 2004 Down To Earth supplement 77

FAQS

Urban Agriculture

MYTHS & REALITY


Myth 1: Urban agriculture means kitchen gardening. Household and community gardening are an important and a very easy individual based contribution towards farming. But urban agriculture is not limited to the individual houses.It goes beyond that and looks at the food system that feeds millions that live in the city. Myth 2: Urban agriculture is a marginal activity or means of survival. Urban agriculture means good access to food for the poorest, a source of income and good food for the stable poor, savings, nutritious and safe food for the middle class and profits for entrepreneurs. For the poorest, it cuts expenses on fuel and foods that are by far the maximum income spent areas by this group. Also urban agriculture is central to the citys economy and generates incomes and jobs within the city. Myth 3: Urban agriculture grabs land that could have been given higher price value as rent. It is a bad investment. Urban agriculture usually utilises land that is either lying idle or unsuitable for other purposes. Or, it uses land that is allocated for other uses, thus giving back higher values. Most cities have many unused spaces in the city that can be made green spaces. In Delhi, vast tracts of land are devoted to lawns. These can be used for urban agriculture. Lawns are aesthetic, but have no productive value, consume enormous amounts of water and are mainly for the rich. This passion for lawns has its origins in British colonial tradition. Myth 4: Urban agriculture competes with and is less efficient than rural farming. The truth is that urban agriculture thrives on products that are less suited for rural farming and that might be too costly for the urban poor. Mushroom and broccoli are two such examples.
78 Gobar Times, March 15, 2004 Down To Earth supplement

Myth 5: Urban agriculture is unhygienic. Health problems are undoubtedly the most serious consequence of inappropriately practiced urban farming. Pesticides, fertilisers and untreated sewage can pollute the urban environment. Farming along the roadsides, where crops are susceptible to automobile exhaust, can lead to food contamination. However, appropriate urban agriculture is not harmful, but has the potential to improve hygiene in the city because it uses polluting waste as a production input. Myth 6: Urban agriculture causes pollution and damages the environment. Urban farming can cause pollution of the soil, water and air and affect urban areas adversely. The solution is to provide guidance and assistance to make it a safer industry for farmers, consumers and the environment. Myth 7: Urban agriculture is unsightly and aesthetically inappropriate in the city. Urban agriculture creates green spaces in the city, replacing vacant or unproductive spaces within the city into green and productive spaces, while at the same time providing livelihood to the urban poor. If the fields in the rural villages are considered beautiful, why are plots of vegetables considered an eyesore? Myth 8: Urban agriculture is an archaic, utopian concept and cannot be created today. In the past, western thought nurtured the concept of garden cities or farming in the city. Of late, "modernity" is equated to concrete cities. Urban is associated with "industrial" and rural with agricultural. This paradigm shapes the world of today. That is why urban agriculture has been omitted from urban planning requirements. Farming has been positioned as an outdated and backward activity, not fit for the modern city by planners.

Make Your Own Micro-garden at Home!


You dont need land. Making a small farm at home is quite simple and can be done so with things lying around the house and some waste material and water on a rooftop, terrace or balcony.
Step 1 You need a container to grow the plants. Earthen or cement pots are the best. Wooden crates lined on the inside with plastic, old tires, egg trays,any plastic containers can also be used. You can even take an old wooden bed and cover it with thick black plastic. Step 2 You need to put a substrate in the container. Rice hull, sawdust, volcanic scoria, sand, gravel, coconut fibre, perlite, peat, peanut husks etc. You will also require a nutrient solution which can be obtained from the fermentation of organic waste material. Step 3 You need a suitable location. Basically, you need 1 to 10 square metres of free space, a minimum of six hours of daily sunlight and a clean water source. So the options could be your rooftop, balcony, backyard or any place else that meets the requirements. Step 4 You have to select what you have to grow. Tomato, beans, onion, garlic, gourds, potato, celery, pepper, chilly, carrot, lettuce, basil, cucumber, radish, cabbage, red beet, spinach, eggplant, medicinal plants... People have even grown mangoes and maize on a terrace garden. Go organic: Be a chemical free farmer. Buy readymade, or compost your own organic kitchen, garden, left over food, household waste. You can create a vermicompost bin even on a balcony in a flat. It really works. Be Waterwise: Wastewater from kitchen and bathrooms can be treated, recycled and used. Be chemical free: make use of bio-pesticides using neem, turmeric, lemons, tobacco, garlic, onions. Soap solution helps. Plant 'plant traps' like marigold or chrysanthemums to mitigate bugs. Remember pests cannot be controlled, only managed.

Now youre ready to be a City farmer!


To know more about organic kitchen and terrace gardens or school or community gardens, write to rachita@cseindia.org Gobar Times, March 15, 2004 Down To Earth supplement 79

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