Jac Smit (1929-2009) – Father of Urban Agriculture

Jac Smit Passed Away Sunday, November 15

From Joe Nasr, co-author with Jac of Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities.

Jac Smit, often referred to as “the father of urban agriculture”, passed away on Sunday November 15th at his Washington, DC home, a few days after his 80th birthday. After working initially in the US (notably Chicago), Jac had a long career as a planner around the world, with assignments in Egypt, Iraq, Tanzania, and across South Asia, among others. Jac was a pioneer in advocating for the cause of urban agriculture, first publishing on it in the 1960s. He was the lead author on the seminal book on the subject: Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities (1996). Jac founded The Urban Agriculture Network (TUAN) in 1992; the unique library that he collected for TUAN will form the foundation of a new Urban Food and Agriculture Learning Centre in Toronto, to be managed by MetroAg – Alliance for Urban Agriculture. For more information on Jac’s contribution to the field of urban agriculture, see www.jacsmit.com. Jac is survived by his wife Elise Fiber Smith. He will be greatly missed.

Update Dec 20, 2009 – Washington Post

Urban agriculture advocate Jac Smit, 80

Jac Smit, 80, the founder and a former president of the Urban Agriculture Network, a nonprofit organization that promotes the practice of growing food staples in small, city-based gardens, died Nov. 15 at his home in Washington. He had metastatic cancer.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Smit’s organization was awarded a grant from the U.N. Development Program to investigate urban agricultural farming around the world. Mr. Smit’s findings, published in 1996, said that the millions of people from Nairobi to Mexico City who had even a small yield of crops were less likely to be malnourished and unhealthy.

Mr. Smit served as an adviser on dozens of urban agricultural projects, including in Bogota, Colombia; Karachi, Pakistan; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti; and also in refugee camps in Bangladesh and Tanzania.

John William Smit was born in Ealing, near London, to a Dutch immigrant family. The family moved to Rhode Island when Mr. Smit was an infant and later spent time in Illinois, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Mr. Smit graduated in 1952 with a degree in ornamental horticulture from what is now Farmingdale State College in New York. In 1961, he received a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Harvard University.

From 1963 to 1967, Mr. Smit worked as a project planner in Chicago before joining the Ford Foundation for three years as an adviser to the metropolitan planning organization in Calcutta, India.

Mr. Smit first started working with the United Nations in 1972 as a director in Bangladesh with the International Rescue Committee. From 1975 to 1978, he helped plan agricultural development projects in cities on the Suez Canal.

Mr. Smit moved to the Washington area in the early 1980s. He spent time in Egypt, working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, before being hired by the Japanese government to help plan a renewal project in Baghdad.

In 1992, Mr. Smit founded and became the first president of the Urban Agriculture Network. He stepped down as president this year.

Mr. Smit was a member of the Hash House Harriers, a running organization.

His marriage to Justine Pascale ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife, Elise Fiber Smith of Washington; two stepsons, Guy Smith of Minneapolis and Greg Smith of Beaufort, S.C.; two brothers; and seven grandchildren.

T. Rees Shapiro

Link to Washington Post

More on Jac

From Mike Levenston.

Jac inspired all of us who work in urban agriculture. I will sadly miss his weekly calls. He was young at heart and kept up with urban agriculture news until his death. Just a few weeks ago he told me he’d write some new articles for this web site. Jac always looked ahead with a great spirit.

See From The Desk of Jac Smit on this web site.

From our archives

Jac attended hundreds of meetings in his work developing and promoting urban agriculture. Here in New York City on June 8, 2001, he meets with some of the members of the Support Group For Urban Agriculture (SGUA).

Standing from the left:

Jac Smit, The Urban Agriculture Network (TUAN), Washington, DC, Author of “Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities”

Luc Mougeot, Ph.D, Senior Program Specialist, “Cities Feeding People Program”, International Development and Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada

Yves Cabanne, UNCHS/UNDP “Urban Management Program for Latin America and the Caribbean”, Quito, Ecuador

Gordon Prain, Ph.D., Coordinator, CGIAR: Strategic Initiative on Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture (SIUPA) Lima, Peru

Sitting from the left:

Michael Levenston, City Farmer, “Urban Agriculture Notes” (http://www.cityfarmer.org) Vancouver, Canada

Olivio Argenti, Focal Point of FAO’s Initiatives for “Food Supply and Distribution to Cities”, Rome, Italy

Attending but not in photograph:

Jonas Rabinovitch, (Meeting Host), Senior Policy Adviser on Urban Development and Rural-Urban Relations, United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

Peter Matlon, Program Manager, Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture, Natural Resources, United Nations Development Program (UNDP)/SEED

Attending by conference phone:

Henk de Zeeuw, Co-ordinator, Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Forestry (RUAF), Leusden, The Netherlands

Joep Bijlmer, Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGIS), The Netherlands