Category — europe

An Ad That Has London Buzzing.

The winter of 2009-2010 proved disastrous for registered beehives in London

News Release from: LIDA
21/06/2011

Excerpt:

Award-winning creative agency LIDA, part of M&C Saatchi, has redesigned original artwork by cult artist Magnus Muhr to highlight the plight of London’s bees. The eye-catching campaign images use dead bees and simple illustrative techniques to convey the situation of London’s bee population. These visuals will take the form of striking billboards appearing across the London Underground network from Friday June 17 and humorous video clips with a serious message, which are hoped to go viral across the internet.

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By Paul de Graaf
2011

Since 2007 a group of Rotterdam citizens has been active under the name Eetbaar Rotterdam (Edible Rotterdam). Coming from different disciplines this expert group has been stimulating and initiating urban agriculture in Rotterdam, because they believe urban agriculture can greatly benefit the city.

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Editors: R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, K. Bolhöfer
Release Date:
February 2011
Gestalten

This book presents inspiring work from around the world that is bringing nature back into our cities: from urban farming initiatives, guerilla gardening, and architectural visions, to furniture, products, and other everyday objects that use plants in a functional or aesthetic way. Some of the included projects are changing the landscapes of our cities as a whole, while others can make our own streets and homes greener—most importantly, all are trying to get people to think differently. For everyone who has an interest in a more responsible and environmentally friendly lifestyle, this entertaining and socially relevant book makes it clear that we can design our urban future in a way that’s green, innovative, vibrant, and constructive.

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London Open Garden Squares Weekend 2011 and Capital Growth food growing projects

By Chloe Musson
June 17, 2011

I went along to the Open Garden Squares Weekend in London to find out how people are using vacant urban space and land to grow fruit and vegetables in the Capital. I visited the new Regent’s Park allotment garden and spoke to Capital Growth about their recent successes in developing new community food growing spaces in London. I also visited the King’s Cross Central Skip Garden, created by sustainability education charity Global Generation, and FARM:shop in Dalston, East London – a derelict inner city terrace which has been transformed into a mini hydroponic and aquaponic farm.

Kohl wächst im Prinzessinnengarten am Moritzplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. (Bild: picture alliance / dpa)

By Von Ingeborg Breuer
dradio.de
26.05.2011

Excerpt:

Wenn aus innerstädtischen Brachflächen “Community Gardens” werden

“Urbanes Gärtnern”, Gärtnern mitten in der Stadt ist angesagt. Auf Brachflächen, Parkdecks oder in Hinterhöfen werden Beete angelegt. Anwohner begrünen triste öffentliche Flächen. In interkulturellen Gärten bauen Menschen verschiedenster Herkunft Obst und Gemüse an. Selbst der als spießig verschriene Schrebergarten erfreut sich zunehmender Beliebtheit.

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Modern Culture student, Nina Wöhlk (right), helps a young volunteer to fill a raised garden bed with soil before planting some vegetables. Photo by Afton Halloran.

Students and local community spent the weekend turning unused urban space into an experimental garden

By Afton Halloran
University of Copenhagen Post
May 8, 2011

Excerpt:

An empty and abandoned city lot in the Copenhagen suburb of Amager may not sound that appealing to most. However, through the eyes of locals, like humanities students Majken Hviid, Nina Wöhlk, and Henriette Noermark, it is a place of huge potential.

Urban agriculture, the reclaiming of vacant city locations for farming, has come to Copenhagen. The city thereby follows a global trend, with rooftop vegetable gardens in New York and legislation recently passed in Canada re-allowing chickens in your back yard.

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“Envisioning one option for truly sustainable agriculture.”

“Polydome is a revolutionary approach to commercial agriculture that offers the possibility of net-zero-impact greenhouse food production. It produces high yields of over 50 different crops, while also sustainably incorporating chicken, bees, and fish. The increased variety and productivity of the system means that even a small Polydome greenhouse can provide a diverse food supply for a large population. Using Polydome, even New York City could provide the majority of its own food supply using available roof space.

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BYBØNDER. »Vi bliver mere og mere stressede, og vi dør af luftforurening. Jeg fatter simpelthen ikke, hvorfor vi partout skal have et højere tempo ind i byen«, siger den urbane landmand Anders Christoffer Andersen. – Foto: Mathias Christensen.

An urban farming initiative in Nørrebro

By Afton Halloran
Urban Agriculture Denmark
May 5, 2011

Excerpt:

The efforts of the unsung heros of the decentralized urban agriculture movement in Copenhagen are now starting to be recognized outside of their usual circles. For example, on April 29th, 2011 Politiken published a feature article on DYRK, an urban farming initiative in Nørrebro, titled “Urbane landmænd planter grønne chok i København”

Located on the roof of Blågård School DYRK has made a 250 square meter garden. And the group also has a variety of mobile raised beds that associations, institutions, cafes and cultural centers in the area can borrow.

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This map shows the location of urban agriculture projects, volunteers and available space.

Bringing city dwellers together to explore inspirational ways of producing, storing, cooking, preserving, distributing and sharing food.

Excerpts:

In Amsterdam, Farming the City has brought together, for the first time, representatives from the ever-expanding range of players involved in local urban and suburban food production, including community activists, local politicians, computer geeks, planners, policy-makers, farmers, gardeners, shopkeepers, social workers, developers, landlords, engineers, designers, health professionals and academics.

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The Prince has turned his Château de la Bourdaisière in Touraine into a high-end destination with its National Conservatory of Tomatoes (650 varieties) and historical vegetable and medicinal gardens.

The Prince Gardener Louis Albert de Broglie
Monday, May 2 at 7pm, 2011
Part of a series “Art de Vivre: Gardens for Gourmets”
by the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF)

Founder of the luxury garden brand Le Prince Jardinier and owner of the renowned natural science institution Deyrolle, de Broglie will discuss the rise of garden tourism and biodiversity in 21st-century gardens. He will appear in conversation with Roger Doiron, head of Kitchen Gardeners International and a lead activist behind Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden at the White House. FIAF Members, $20, Non-Members $25.

Excerpt about the Prince:

The recent story of Louis Albert de Broglie is very much linked with his interaction with the Château de la Bourdaisière that he bought with his brother in 1991.

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Food from the Sky has planted a vegetable garden on a shop roof in north London – and its founder wants other shops around the country to do the same

By Laura Barnett
The Guardian
9 March 2011

Excerpt:

Of all the things you might reasonably expect to be doing on a blustery March day, standing on the roof of a supermarket and dragging a rake through a bag of decaying vegetables is probably not one of them. I am on top of Thornton’s Budgens supermarket in Crouch End, north London, which volunteers have transformed from a flat expanse of concrete into a flourishing potted garden and vegetable patch.

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Inoculating willow trunks with oyster mushroom spores. Photo by Debra Solomon. Dutch food blogger. See culiblog.org here.

Urban Agriculture in Holland

By Jan Eelco Jansma en Esther Veen
Wagewningen University
04/03/2011

Excerpt:

On the day of the provincial elections, I visited the cities of Assen and Groningen. Groningen, designated the Capital of Taste, has been active for a number of years in connecting the urban green areas with the Stadjers (the inhabitants of Groningen). In various locations within the city, fruit trees have been planted in cooperation with residents, a flock of sheep keeps the verges and grassy strips neatly trimmed, the catering facilities within the municipal council serve local produce, and entrepreneurs in the surrounding area take on the challenge of selling their wares in the city. Following in the footsteps of Groningen, Assen is also keen to create space for forms of urban agriculture.

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Quartierbewohner bei einer Pflanzaktion für den temporären Garten Kalkbreite in Zürich Wiedikon. (Bild: Sabine Wolf)

Junge Städter entdecken ihre grünen Daumen – mitten in Zürich spriesst Gemüse auf temporären Freiflächen

By Irène Troxler
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
7. März 2011,

Excerpt:

Sie pflanzen Gemüse zwischen Trams und Autokolonnen und entwickeln Fischfarmen für Hausdächer. Die Bewegung der Urban Farmers hat Zürich erreicht. Dabei geht es um nachhaltige Ernährung und um eine kreative Verwandlung der Stadt.

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Immigrants and community gardens in Germany

By Gayle Chong Kwan, Giulia Giannola, Francescamila Nemni

We are looking for people from different nationalities based in Berlin that wish to join our project, Invisible Twinning.

We are collecting photographs, interviews, sketches, recipes, maps and stories providing information on herbs, fruit, vegetables or plants grown in the allotments, which have significance for the immigrant populations: the collected materials will become a publication.

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28-30 September 2010, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Excerpt from Summit Report:

MetroAg and UrbanAg

A key concern and question for MetroAg is how well it is differentiated from Urban Agriculture. Many of the stakeholders participating in city workshops and attending the Summit are UrbanAg practitioners, so this distinction is important if MetroAg is not to become confused with the former.

The concern is valid, as three interviewees noted:

“The Summit made it clear for me that Metropolitan Agriculture is an economic activity, carried out by professionals, that also delivers on people and planet values. Urban Agriculture is often not about agriculture as an economic activity, but primarily about producing food, in combination with social values like community building.

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Nomadic green: The Princess Garden in Berlin-Kreuzberg

All four films are in German

Four new short films (in German) by George Eich show the different dimensions of urban gardening, its liveliness as well as its social and cultural aspects: A mobile, urban agriculture at the Prinzessinnengarten in the middle of Berlin-Kreuzberg; a neighborhood garden that becomes the departure point for city development from bottom up; cooking with boys with Turkish background in the intercultural garden in Görlitzer Park; and the moving of the Guerilla Garden “Rosa Rose”.

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By Urban Architecture Project

About 50 community-run green areas have been mapped: little urban gardens, play yards, edible gardens and areas for walking, resting, or simply talking. Citizens and associations acting together to reclaim the abandoned areas in Rome.

More than 100 sites together with the 65 spontaneous gardens are registered in the municipality of Rome.

There are urban farms too and other interesting destinations such as Participation Houses, “Punti Verdi Qualità” and green areas maintained by established associations.

See the map here.

Nærum Allotment Gardens

By Annemarie Lund

Nærum Allotment Gardens in Denmark, are considered one of C. Th. Sørensen’s most important creations. In 1948 40 oval allotment gardens, each measuring c.25 × 15 m/80 × 50 ft, were laid out on a rolling lawn, a common green, in a fluid progression. The gardens are mostly placed so that the oval lies across the curves of the slope. This use of the rolling terrain, combined with the sweeps and curves of the hedges, accentuates the dynamic impression. The individual garden plots are enclosed compartments surrounded by hedges; their cottages may be situated in different ways, but comply with the overall plan.

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Zellen. Life Science – Urban Farming lectures

Nov. 2010
In German

Excerpt:

Between workshops on harvesting, collecting seeds, the garden can be explored. The youth clubs of HAU present material they have worked on for several months, and die Helmis will show “Hans-Guck-in-die-Luft”. The mother of 19-year-old Hans is an outstanding tightrope walker, and his father a famous ornithologist. Hans is clumsy and living in his own world, but he is also a very talented draughtsman and bird voice imitator who has to cope with the conflict between an artist’s life and reality.

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Image by Stephanie Carter.

Eleven articles on urban agriculture in Vertigo – The electronic journal of Environmental Science

Vertigo, Vol 10, No. 2
Sept. 2010. In French
Articles about UA in Europe, America and Africa by authors from various backgrounds. This issue was coordinated by Eric Duchemin Institute of Environmental Sciences at UQAM (Canada), Luc Mougeot IDRC (Canada) and Joe Nasr Ryerson College (Canada).

Louiza Boukharaeva et Marcel Marloie
L’apport du jardinage urbain de Russie à la théorisation de l’agriculture urbaine

Manon Boulianne, Geneviève Olivier-d’Avignon et Vincent Galarneau
Les retombées sociales du jardinage communautaire et collectif dans la conurbation de Québec

Emmanuel Pezrès
La permaculture au sein de l’agriculture urbaine : Du jardin au projet de société

Christian Peltier
Agriculture et projet urbain durables en périurbain : la nécessité d’un réel changement de paradigme

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