Category — Asia

Photos by Sushil Thapa.

In Kathmandu Valley, there are more than 500 brick kilns

By Sushil Thapa
Kathmandu, Nepal
ag.sushilthapa@gmail.com
Aug 22, 2011

The urban and peri-urban agriculture in Nepal covers a wide range of activities resulting in production, processing, preservation, marketing and consumption of food. It also provides livelihood opportunities for the urban population. It has been estimated that this sector contributes around 23 per cent of the supply of fresh vegetables in Kathmandu, capital city of Nepal. Despite this fact, in the recent years, the number of brick kilns has been increased hampering the urban food production and deficiently polluting the environment. In Kathmandu Valley, there are more than 500 brick kilns occupying thousands of hectares of cultivable land.

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Urban farmer Perfecto “Jojo” Rom, an Agriculture graduate of the Xavier University- Ateneo de Cagayan de Oro, plants vegetables in plastic containers in his backyard in Davao City. Photo by Bong D. Fabe.

“There is a need for fresh food and urban agriculture, through Urban Container Gardening, gives us the opportunity to provide fresh, organic, nutritious food to the market”

By Bong D. Fabe
BusinessMirror.com.ph
14 August 2011

Excerpt:

Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan – Rom graduated from Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan in 2001 with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Major in Crop Science through a full scholarship provided by the Xavier Science Foundation from 1997 to 2001. He has visited other countries teaching those willing to listen the concept of UCG.

Using discarded, broken plastic containers and even used tires, 35-year-old Rom has embarked on a one-man crusade teaching households and individuals to contribute to the Philippines’ food security program, as well as ecological sanitation and environmental protection through urban farming.

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Despite the challenges, vertical farming experiments like this one in Suwon, South Korea, give many hope that vertical farming may still make the transition from the drawing board to reality. Photo by Heinrich Holtgreve.

Vertical Farming; Can Urban Agriculture Feed a Hungry World?

By Fabian Kretschmer and Malte E. Kollenberg
Spiegel Online
July 22, 2011

Excerpt:

One day, Choi Kyu Hong might find himself in a vegetable garden on the 65th floor of a skyscraper. But, so far, his dream of picking fresh vegetables some 200 meters (655 feet) up has only been realized in hundreds of architectural designs.

In real life, the agricultural scientist remains far below such dizzying heights, conducting his work in a nondescript three-story building in the South Korean city of Suwon. The only thing that makes the squat structure stand out is the solar panels on its roof, which provide power for the prototype of a farm Choi is working on. If he and his colleagues succeed, their efforts may change the future of urban farming — and how the world gets its food.

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Osbert Lam examines a long bean plant on his rooftop farm ‘Eco-Mama” on June 16. The farm is one of an estimated 300 urban farming projects that now populate the city.

Hong Kongers themselves have historically been resistant to the idea of farming as a suitable pastime. “It is the lowest of our traditional caste system. In traditional Chinese culture, if you’re good at nothing else, you work on the farm.”

By Benjamin Gottlie
CNN
June 29, 2011

Excerpt:

Lam’s farm — a humble 2,000 square feet — is one of an estimated 300 urban farming projects that now occupy Hong Kong’s high-rises, joining the broader, global movement of food sustainability projects in densely populated urban settings.

“Twenty years ago, locals thought that the soil here was dirty,” said Simon Chau, founder of the Produce Green Foundation, which manages Hong Kong’s first urban farm in Tsuen Wan. “Now, after 20 years, people have started to realize that it is rewarding and meaningful to grow something themselves and to eat it.”

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A local city lawyer says rooftop space is accessible to all interested gardeners.

NTD Television
2011-06-21

Chinese gardeners are turning a gritty industrial landscape green. Residents in Chongqing city are transforming rooftops into innovative mini farms. Let’s take a look.

Environmentally friendly residents in China’s southwest city of Chongqing are creating mini-farms on their rooftops.

These green-fingered gardeners are growing organic vegetables and fruits like eggplants, peppers, green beans and balsam pears.

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The piglet dispersal program is an ongoing activity of the city’s agriculture program that allows poor families to care for and breed the hogs.

By Lydia C. Pendon
SunStar
June 15, 2011

ILOILO City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog will lead Thursday the awarding of 61 piglets to selected beneficiaries in urban poor and farming communities.

He will be joined by Iloilo City Congressman Jerry P. Treñas, City Vice Mayor Jose Espinosa III and Dr. Sylvia S. Bermillo of the City Agriculturist Office (CAO) in awarding the piglets to the recipients.

City Agriculturist Officer (CAO) in-charge Geraldine Hautea said despite Iloilo’s status as a highly urbanized city in the Visayas, there still exist farming communities in 22 barangays in the city with concentration at the Jaro and Mandurriao districts.

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Yan Zong Wang on his allotment on the outskirts of Beijing. Photo by Adam Dean.

China goes organic after years of ‘glow in the dark pork’ and ‘exploding watermelons’

After years of nerve-racking food scares from “melamine milk” to “glow-in-the-dark” pork and “exploding watermelons” urban China is starting to embrace the shoots of a new, green revolution and is going organic.

By Peter Foster
The Telegraph
29 May 2011

Excerpts:

From a runner-bean spotted spiralling along the balcony balustrade of a Beijing apartment, to long waiting-lists for allotments, a plethora of gardening websites and a mushrooming of organic farms and shops, Chinese families are increasingly looking to “grow their own”.

In recent years China has been hit by a number of food scandals and fears about safety have lingered. In 2008, 300,000 babies became seriously ill and six babies died after being given formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine.

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Photo: Star

In the near future, urban and semi-urban agriculture will be accepted and implemented as a major intervention in food security and social security programmes

By Syed Anwarul Haque
The writer is a former Professor of Soil Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University.
The Daily Star
May 27, 2011

Excerpt:

Floriculture is an important aspect of Dhaka daily life. Every day there are marriages, birthday parties, meetings etc. where flowers are essential to grace the occasion. Growing markets have also sprung up in different corners of the city to cater the needs of the city dwellers. It creates a lot of job opportunities for the hither unemployed people and brings money to improve their livelihood.

To meet the demand of the huge population of Dhaka, a vast quantity of fruits is needed. To meet the demand and earn money out of selling fruits, fruit plantations have developed in a small scale in the city as well as in the periphery in a scattered way.

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“In the future, we predict plant factories will make their way to regular households as home electric appliances.”

By Ginny Mies
PCWorld
May 11, 2011

Excerpt:

The hardware–known as Plant Factories–are computer-controlled boxes that provide lighting, water temperature, air temperature, nutrients and oxygen gas to your plants. Each plant box has a blue LED light as well as red LED light, which, according to Farmbox, can be used to control the taste or the growth rate of your plant!

When your phone is hooked up to the Farmbox, the Farmbox app (which isn’t currently available in the Android App Market) will automatically document your basil’s growth data.

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Balcony Farms Sprout In City

By Neeno Pandora
The Urban Times
May 9 201

Excerpt:

Scares about food safety and the high cost of organics in Shanghai are prompting some city residents to grow their own veggies that are clean, safe, cheap and fresh. Yao Minji visits balcony farmers.

Kevin Liu will have stir-fried green onions with scrambled eggs for dinner tonight, since the leeks he planted last spring on his windowsill are ready to be harvested.

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URL link to video here.

“The One Straw Revolution” published in 1978

In 1973, Larry Korn was under the tutelage of his Sensei (teacher), Masanobu Fukuoka, who lived in Shikoku Island, Japan. Korn received a hands-on education in the art of non-cultivation and do-nothing, natural farming. Translated in many languages, Masanobu Fukuoka wrote “The One Straw Revolution,” (New York Book Reviews), a classic memoir and guide.

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Manuel Mercado Lapid , popularly known as Lito Lapid, (born October 25, 1955 in Porac, Pampanga) is a Filipino actor, politician and Senator of the Republic of the Philippines.

The bill also tasks the Department of Science and Technology to study vertical farming

Excerpt:

An Act promoting the use of urban agriculture and vertical farming in the country’s metropolitan areas to address food security concerns and regenerate ecosystem functions appropriating funds therefor and for other purpose.

Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled:

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Greenpeace radiation team experts Teule and Westwood check crops for contamination at a garden in Fukushima City.

The problem for Fukushima’s fishermen and farmers – and indeed, for many more people both inside and outside Japan – is that little is known what these contamination levels mean for food safety.

By Krista Mahr
Time Magazine blog
Apr 22, 2011

Excerpts:

By a road leading out of Iwaki, two elderly women sit on the ground in a verdant vegetable garden, eating dried fruit and enjoying one of the first warm days of spring. Behind them, a row of cherry trees is in bloom; in front of them, well-groomed rows of leafy napa cabbage and daikon soak up the sun. “We’re throwing everything away. We don’t even eat it ourselves.” says one of the women, a farmer wearing a green bonnet who declines to give her name but gamely admits she clocks in somewhere over 70.

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IFOAM Congress 26th September to 5th October, 2011 in the Republic
Korea.

Goals of the conference – Organic urban agriculture:

To discuss how to solve the issue of reduced farm land caused by urbanization in the world; to pursue agriculture accessible to urbanites in the urbanized area; and to discuss the conditions necessary for urban agriculture to perform positively. The main objective of this urban agriculture conference is to improve the natural environment of urban areas and to preserve healthy ecological systems.

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Nokia – HK Honey from The Silentlights on Vimeo.

Hong Kong honey

Directed by Kiku Ohe.
Produced by Exit Films as part of Nokia’s E7 Success Redefined campaign.
(Brilliant video. Mike)

Hong Kong is home to more than 7 million people. Amongst the high rise apartments, product designer Michael Leung founder of HK Honey, has created his own space bringing nature back into the metropolis one box at a time.

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Yu Neng Primary pupil Hui Ling Ler tending one of her school’s square watermelon plots. They are part of an initiative by The Living Project, which works with emerging gardens across Singapore and aims to source for corporate funding for them. Photo by Chew Seng Kim.

Trend of consuming local produce and urban farming

By Jessica Cheam
The Straits Times
March 22, 2011

Excerpt:

What’s interesting is this. Mr Eng said that in Singapore – from what he has seen recently – urban farming is spreading and now being perceived as “modern and cool”, with more people in Singapore wanting to embrace “nature-inspired lifestyles”.

There’s an irony here, in urbanites in Singapore taking to farming, probably for a brief escape from their busy city lives, while those in rural countries are ditching their farming jobs to pursue life in the cities.

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Rooftop garden in Bangladesh.

Nogor Krishor (Urban Farmer) Working for The Greenery of Dhaka City

By M.H.M. Borhannuddin Bhuyan
Info@nogorkrishok.org
March 22, 2011

If we look around, in our urban environment, we hardly ever find a fragment of the so-called “green belt”, let alone a vegetable patch or a shrub of juicy fruits. In this concrete jungle, of major cities sash as Dhaka and Chittagong of Bangladesh or even in the major cities of the Western World such as Landon and New York, it is essential for healthy living that we introduce what we lost in our villages through urbanization.

Nogor Krishok (Urban Farmer) is an agro-based organization involved in promoting urban agriculture in the major cities of Bangladesh like Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong through support for production of vegetables, flowers, fruits, ornamental and medicinal plants on roof top and the barren places of the home. The institution is managed by a team of experienced and highly skilled professionals in agriculture and senior experts.

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Though most of the family gardens are of 20 sq. meters to 500 sq. meters, products from such gardens contribute significantly to the food supply of the family.

By: Sushil Thapa
Email: ag.sushilthapa@gmail.com
March, 2011

In Nepal, urban and peri-urban agriculture (PUA) has been practiced since time immemorial and is a traditional way of life. The rate of migration from villages to the urban areas has increased significantly in the past decade especially, after the beginning of the armed conflict in the country. Hence, urban population has increased dramatically in all the urban areas. Rough estimates show that more than half of Nepal’s population will be living in urban and peri-urban areas by the year 2020. With increasing population, traditional agricultural systems in urban and peri-urban areas are changing and agriculture in and around the urban areas is becoming more market oriented compared to subsistence oriented rural agriculture.

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Roof deck veggie garden in Austin, TX, US. By Bercy Chen Studio LP.

“We can map these to identify areas for food production”

PNA
Feb 26, 2011

Director Silvino Tejada of the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Soil and Water Management said he plans to talk to owners and administrators of buildings in Metro Manila so the agency can help them and their tenants develop vegetable gardening even on roofdecks.

He said such action is needed since Metro Manila’s vegetable supply is jeopardized when calamities strike due to difficulty in raising and transporting the produce.

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Allotment Garden Project in Cagayan D’Oro, Philipines.

“We can farm 365 days a year so let us use this opportunity.”

By Jerome Carlo R. Paunan
PIA Press Release
February 22, 2011

MANILA, Feb. 22 (PIA) — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is set to launch next month its nationwide urban gardening initiative to help boost food security of the country.

According to Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala, the public, especially the urban dwellers, must use every opportunity to grow their own food even in tight spaces only.

Alcala said growing vegetables in containers or vacant lots can be very helpful, particularly during catastrophes when transport of produce from farms becomes difficult and costly.

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