Category — Asia

Bangalore produces over 2000 to 3000 tonnes of waste everyday. The centralized government composting plant can handle only 500 tonnes per day. The rest reaches dumps that are illegal.

In just five years the Daily Dump team has helped over 4,500 customers in Bengaluru to compost household waste in terracotta pots, and these customers keep around 5,522kg of organic waste out of landfills every day. What is remarkable about Poonam Bir Kasturi’s waste management process is its simplicity, and the cleverly designed terracotta pots add a touch of earthiness to it.

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“Here in the city, our satisfaction is the aesthetic effect of the gardens and our access to fresh vegetables,” he said.

By Paul M. Icamina
Malaya Business Insight
Jan 2012

Excerpt:

There are a lot of other vacant spaces in the 130-hectare subdivision all waiting to be found by urban farmers.

“I heard lately that the city government is interested in developing similar community gardens,” Reyes said.

For this season, the Luxemburg farmers plant mustard, coriander and Chinese pechay in four vacant lots, ranging in area from 500-2,000 square meters.

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Tran Nguyen Bo is taking care of his garden used as a farm to earn his living in the urban center of Hanoi. Photo by Tuoi Tre.

In the middle of rapidly urbanizing Hanoi, Tran Nguyen Bo, a 70 year old man from Ngoc Ha Ward in Ba Dinh District, uses an 800 square meter garden to plant daisy flowers for earning his family’s living, following his ancestors’ work.

Tuoitrenews
January 12, 2012

Excerpts:

Sandwiched between tall buildings in a long, curvy and tiny alley of Hanoi, Bo’s small house was built in 1985 and is the only one-storey house remaining there. At the back is the green garden with fresh buds of daisies ready for the Tet holiday.

“This year winter started late, thus our crop was late as well,” Lien, Bo’s wife said while using newspaper to wrap daisy plants to be delivered to the night market.

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The above video is the complete 60 Minutes report.

Black and white truffles are the world’s most expensive foods, and they are coveted by chefs and criminals alike.

By John Platt
Mother Nature Network
Jan 09 2012

Excerpt:

Truffles are “being trafficked like drugs, stolen by thugs, and threatened by inferior imports from China,” said correspondent Lesley Stahl on the program that aired Jan. 8.

Black truffles from France cost more than $1,000 a pound. Italian white truffles are even more valuable, bringing in around $3,600 a pound. The price represents not only their rarity but how difficult they are to find, as well as how much haute cuisine diners are willing to pay for just a few truffle shavings on their pasta or burgers.

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Hsintien, Taiwan. Photo by Patrick Coswill.

2 Photos by Patrick Coswill

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The idea of promoting medicinal herbs of the Himalayan Mountains – the project’s goal was to educate the younger population of the uses of plants in the region.

By Shreya Thapa
Republica
2011-12-21

Excerpt:

“The Promoting Herbal Gardens in Schools has been a fun-filled learning activity for the children where they got the opportunity to learn about the medicinal plants by actually planting the medicinal herbs and watching them grow in their garden, and by exploring information about them from various sources. The task of making the garden itself has been enriching in terms of making children realize the importance of team work such as detailed planning, and allocation of tasks within a team.”

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Image by Guillermo Munro, Visual Graphics Editor at China Daily

“Moving to the cities, we are told not to grow vegetables, not to raise chickens in the community, not to leave things in the corridors, and so on and so forth because these habits may annoy our neighbors. But it’s not that easy to change.”

By Liu Yujie
China Daily
2011-12-18

Excerpt:

Zhang Guichun, a 55-year-old Beijinger, has astonished the local community with his organic “hanging garden” on the roof of his traditional courtyard home north of Tian Tan, or the Temple of Heaven in southern Beijing.

“Even if we don’t have enough land in the city, agriculture can go vertical, up to roof and balcony,” Zhang notes.

Zhang, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, began creating his “hanging garden” five years ago, and now it is home to some 30 kinds of vegetables and fruit, including tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet bell peppers, melons and watermelons – all enough to feed his family.

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Urban Farm Urban Barn – Return Farming to the City

Holcim Awards Silver 2011 Asia Pacific
Isavaret Tamonut, TTH Trading Co., Ltd, Thailand
March 2012

Project description
Located in a mixed use urban zone in central Bangkok, the Urban Farm Urban Barn aims to return green areas to the booming city. A former textile factory and abandoned farmland on an adjacent block shall be transformed into a 1.4ha agricultural production site and retail outlet. The atrophying rural economy is reactivated in the context of modern urbanity, and elaborated in a remarkable way. The factory building is converted into an eco-supermarket, additional buildings, such as a restaurant and marketplace are integrated into the crop production by becoming agricultural structures themselves.

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At present, 75% of occupying families have been gaining benefits from the Family Business Garden

By Thilak T. Ranasinghe, PhD.
Consultant/Advisor for Urban Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods

Excerpt:

Technology Adoption: – It is great that residents adopted new crop cultivations, creation of live-vertical-cultivation-structures, and use of artificial shade during drought periods and soil improvement methodologies in the process of technology adoption. Micro-irrigation demonstrations were conducted so as to reduce water bills and also production costs. The adoption levels were high although majority of the residents were strangers to scientific agriculture or if not for any form of micro-agriculture.

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Learn how to farm in Hong Kong on the rooftop of an old factory building

By Hiufu Wong
CNN Go
15 November, 2011

Excerpt:

Project Grow is a city garden located on the rooftop of a building in one of Hong Kong’s underdog neighborhoods — To Kwa Wan.

Before the 1960s, To Kwa Wan was mainly a light-industries area overshadowed by the adjacent neighborhoods of Hung Hom and Kowloon City. Today, the community is mainly made up of elderly and new immigrants living in affordable but fast deteriorating property.

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Community Farm at Nana Nani Park. Photo by Urban Leaves in India.

“The importance and requirement for urban agriculture will only grow in the coming years as transportation costs keep increasing,” says AK Das, senior assistant director, National Horticulture Board.

By Nidhi Nath Srinivas and Pk Krishna Kumar
Economic Times India
18 Nov. 2011

Excerpt:

NEW DELHI | KOCHI: Delhi-based homemaker Shaifali Chikermane had had enough of vegetables laced with deadly chemicals and deceptive sheen. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. Literally so, because just a few months later she has a spread of 25 pots with garlic, onion, green spinach, red spinach, peas, cauliflower, chillies, ginger and herbs growing on the terrace of her 800 sq ft flat.

Chikermane belongs to an expanding tribe of city dwellers across the country who have taken to growing vegetables and reducing dependence on the marketplace. These urban farmers are using every inch of available space for growing fresh vegetables that are salubrious for household budgets as well, especially in these times of raging food inflation.

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How will South Asia cities be fed?

By Kranti Prakash
Bihar, India
Email: kranti_prakash@hotmail.com

How will South Asia cities be fed? – Is an important question demanding attention due to rapidly growing urban population of the sub-continent. Urban and peri-urban organic agriculture is one set of activities resulting in grater food production, improved livelihood opportunities for urbanites and the enhanced environmental qualities of cities. During last decade in south Asian countries people have been experiencing rural growth rate of 17% but urban growth rate of 30% more than 6 thousand cities are in South Asia. Nearly 50000 villages have merged into cities due to urbanization. Millions of farmers had to abandon their age old practice of farming. Prices of fruits and vegetables are growing manifold.

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http://www.chinacityfarmer.com/

www.ChinaCityFarmer.com

Shelley Xu, a visitor to our Compost Garden in Vancouver, looked at some Chinese language websites for information on urban agriculture.

I did some searching on the web and found a Chinese site named “CityFarmer” and some other sources, most of which have information for the public at a grassroots level. Since there’s limited residential space in urban areas, most gardeners utilize their balcony spaces. Community gardens can also be found, and there are some privately owned farms open to the public for recreational/educational visits.

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Techgen, a company which specializes in different methods and techniques in every aspect in urban farming

By Ruel Francisco
Philippine Information Agency
October 25, 2011

CARMONA Cavite, October 25 (PIA) — Thirty farmers from different barangays in this municipality participated in the four-day training on urban agriculture conducted by the municipal agriculture office to equip them with modern methods and techniques.

This is one of the special projects of the local government headed by Mayor Dahlia Loyola and municipal council that will surely provide gainful livelihood for the farmers including out-of-school youth and even retirees, senior citizen in the community.

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Photo by Blaine O’Neill.

In the past quarter of a century, Singapore’s farmlands decreased from 15,000 hectares in the 1960s and 8,000 ha in 1980 to 1,500 ha in 2005.

By Rudy A. Fernandez
The Philippine Star
October 23, 2011

Excerpts:

Urban agriculture can considerably help feed Asia.

This is particularly true in countries, the Philippines included, whose farmlands continue to shrink owing to urbanization, industrialization, and housing needs.

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A cow in Hyderabad, a city of over 4 million people.

“We have a produce of more than 100 litres of milk daily and distribute it not only in this area but also adjoining ones,” says Darogha Yadav, manager of the cattle shed behind Inorbit.

By Rahul Devulapalli
Times of India
Oct 14, 2011

Excerpt:

HYDERABAD: In the backyard of IT hub of Hi-Tec City is another flourishing industry, that of cattle farming. There are an estimated 30 big and small cattle sheds in Madhapur area alone and several more in adjoining areas. The owners, now big realtors and businessmen, are unwilling to use this land for anything else apart from rearing their cows and buffaloes. Owned largely by the local Yadav community, these cattle sheds are almost invisible as they are tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Hi-Tec City.

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Great shots of the community farming ‘later’ in the video.

Organization helps urban farmers in Indonesia

The reduction in green spaces in urban areas is not only an issue in Jakarta, but also throughout the world. By leveraging the power of the Internet, Ridwan Kamil and his friends started Indonesia Gardening, a movement to transform abandoned urban land into green land.

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Photo by Toru Terada.

Agriculture in Japanese cities is under threat

By Raquel Moreno-Peñaranda
OurWorld 2.0
United Nations University
September 23, 2011

Excerpt:

Japan is quite a unique case when it comes to urban agriculture. Despite being a highly industrialized country, the presence of agricultural land use is a common feature on the urban landscape of cities across the nation. It might come as a surprise that almost one-third of all agricultural output in the country is, in fact, generated by urban agriculture. Likewise, urban farmers account for 25% of farming households in Japan.

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Rice paddies, Antananarivo, Madagascar.

Antananarivo produces 90%-100% of the vegetables and 15% to 25% of the rice it consumes each year.

Christine Aubry
INRA press service
21/07/2011

Excerpts:

The capital city of Madagascar, Antananarivo now counts about 2 million inhabitants. Originally built on the top of a hill, the city then spread to neighbouring hills and their slopes before starting to cover the marshland in the valleys during recent decades.

Local agriculture covers nearly 43% of the 425 km² or so of the urban region; although it is present today in the centre of the city, it has long occupied the most flood-prone low-lying areas, the nearby plain and periurban hills. It benefits from a tropical, high-altitude climate (1250-1400 m).

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Growing Oyster Mushrooms at Home. Pleurotus species here at 1300m in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The growing medium is made of rice husks, sawdust and limestone. Paulina, she uses neither insecticides nor fungicides. She sells the mushrooms to Chinese restaurants in Ranau town See video how we do it more naturally in our Australian garden on our channel.

The Seed Savers’ Network

Bit by bit we have produced 350 video clips and uploaded them to Seed Savers’ Youtube channel. We were inspired by our visits to farmers and gardeners around the world and by Seed Savers’ garden of 1000 food species in Byron Bay, Australia. We show you how we save seeds, grow and process our food; people and produce on markets in several countries and food we glean on our travels.

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