Brixton urban agriculture. More photos here.

Growing Round the Houses – Food production on housing estates

By Ben Reynolds and Christine Haigh
2008

Rising food prices and increased interest in healthy food, means more people are looking to grow their own. Growing Round the Houses, a briefing paper by Ben Reynolds of Sustain and Christine Haigh of Women’s Environmental Network, explains how social housing providers and their tenants can work together on their estates to grow food. As well giving advice on how to set up a food growing project on their estate, it describes examples such as the Spitalfields Estate Community Garden, where residents worked together to build themselves a food growing space for vegetables and herbs popular with the local ethnic minority community.

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My Ordinary Extraordinary Yard

By Greg Peterson

You can create your own urban farm. Creating your own urban farm is as simple as planting you flowerbeds with edibles. The payoffs can include home grown food and a deeper connection to the earth. In this unique mini-book, Greg Peterson shares how his yard went from grass and hedges to his very own Urban Farm, full of vegetables and fruit trees with plenty to share. His motto ‘food grows abundantly – lets grow it and give it away.’ This insightful book about how Greg’s Urban Farm came to be will inspire you to create your own urban farm.

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Fungi and Rhubarb Garden – The north facing end of the site will be in shade most of the day and most of the year. Large logs would be impregnated with fungi spores, the rhubarb and mint would be grown beneath them providing interesting food and creating am exotic and educational lunch time destination.

Leadenhall City Farm
By Mitchell Taylor Workshop

“Parks, allotments and markets are set to spring up across Britain on the sites of building projects that have been mothballed in the recession.

“Piers Taylor, of Mitchell Taylor Workshop, one of the practices shortlisted for the Leadenhall site has proposed a city farm, populated with colour-coded chickens. He wants to create grassy banks to picnic on and plant blackberry bushes amid the surrounding steel, granite and glass.”
- from The Times Oct 30, 2009

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Bangalore urban agriculture.

In this bulletin you will find information on:

1. RUAF From Seed to Table Programme

2. Other Urban Agriculture activities by the RUAF Partners

Food, Agriculture and Cities: challenges and way forward

Workshop on influencing and assisting national policy processes

Increasing recognition for urban agriculture in China

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The Organic Gardens at Manatawna Farm in early spring.

Community Gardening in Philadelphia – 2008 Harvest Report

Domenic Vitiello and Michael Nairn
Penn Planning and Urban Studies, University of Pennsylvania
October 2009

Overview

This report summarizes research on the state of community and squatter gardens in Philadelphia, with a focus on the production and distribution of food. The specific aims of this project were to measure the amount of food grown in community gardens and to trace its distribution. The broader goal of this ongoing research is to understand the roles and impacts of community gardens in building food security for households and communities.

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Watch the Video

Michelle Obama appeared on Sesame Street, as part of the 40th anniversary of America’s longest-running children’s TV series.

During the first lady’s visit, she was interrogated by Elmo and Big Bird, two of the characters who have starred in the iconic series since it launched in 1969.

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