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The area devoted to urban agriculture in Harare in Zimbabwe doubled between 1990 and 1994.
It's a true grassroots initiative of "helpless" people helping themselves. Yet they do need help, as much help as they can get -- help in learning the best and safest ways of recycling wastes and the best growing methods, and help in persuading governments and local authorities to support their efforts rather than neglecting them, or even harassing them for occupying public land or land legally zoned for urban use, not agriculture.
Industrialised nations
City farming is growing just as rapidly in the rich cities of the West, perhaps more because of environmental concerns, but also to feed the hungry: the Urban Agriculture Network was
Visitors take part in horticulture therapy at City Farmer's community garden
"founded in response to the increase of persistent hunger in urban areas in both poor countries and rich countries".
The city farming movement has been intensely studied in the 20 years or so that it has burgeoned in the Western cities, and it has been found to deliver a rich harvest of benefits -- benefits that social workers, community organizations, educators, psychologists, health workers, nutritionists and crime fighters can only dream of where there are no city farms or community gardens.
-- "Ideally we believe that simply by changing from suit to jeans, digging up a bit of lawn, and planting vegetable seeds, the city person will begin asking questions about his environment and about his urban behavior and thinking patterns" -- founding directors of City Farmer, addressing science teachers at the 20th International Science Education Symposium in 1979
By 1994, 300,000 households in the US were using a community garden, and 6.7 million more said they'd do so too if there was one nearby (National Gardening Association).
The US government's Urban Gardening program estimates that a $1 investment in food growing projects yields $6 of produce.
Gardening for dollars, Americans go green, Reuters, Washington, May 9, 2002 -- Home gardening is huge. Chalk it up to aging boomers, post-Sept. 11 nesting, or just demand for really fresh cilantro and tomatoes; Americans will spend some $28-billion on their food and flower gardens this year, according to the National Gardening Association.
Improves Urban Farming in Argentina -- Impoverished citizens of Rosario, Argentina’s third largest city, are stepping up efforts to farm in urban neighbourhoods -- by using California red worms. Vermiculture (a method of composting fruit and vegetable waste using earthworms) is proving to be an inexpensive and easy way to create high-quality organic fertilizer. It is also helping improve the local environment.
See Vermicomposting
Everybody benefits, but some of the main beneficiaries are the children. Community garden in Brazilia (City Farmer)
-- "1,631,694 files transmitted from our website for all of 1999, up 43% over 1998" -- City Farmer, Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture, January 2000
Journey to Forever will promote city farming and community gardening initiatives in all the urban centres we visit along our route.
Journey to Forever: Hong Kong to Cape Town Overland - An adventure
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