Category — Land

Alethea Marie Harper, May 2007
Award-Winning Master’s Thesis, 160 pages
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
University of California, Berkeley

“West Oakland is a community with limited access to healthy food. My work for People’s Grocery, a local nonprofit, will help the neighborhood and the nearby agricultural community work together to repair the local food system. Local production, self-sufficiency, and restoration of knowledge and local bonds are emphasized throughout. This project exemplifies how analysis and planning can combine pragmatism with idealism, creating a realizable vision for a thriving neighborhood and a robust local food system.

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By Robin Kortright, Master of Arts 2007, Department of Geography, University of Toronto (139 pages)

“Of the 125 people who were originally contacted, just over half (54%) grew food, meaning vegetables, fruit, nuts, or herbs. Of the people who grew food, almost three quarters grew herbs, nearly two thirds grew vegetables, and just over a quarter grew fruit. Almost everyone grew food only in their backyards, with just three people growing food in their front yard and two in a community garden.

“65 percent of Toronto households have a lawn or garden. Owning your home, gardening skills, and a sunny garden are important parts of being able to grow food in a back garden. There is far more land in home gardens than will likely be available for community gardens in the near future. Home food gardens are an important part of urban food systems. They would benefit from more support, such as information about and access to compost, mulch, rain gauges and soil testing resources.”

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“The livelihood of a large number of people in cities in developing countries depends on urban agriculture. However, municipal governments to a large extent have looked upon agriculture as incompatible with urban development and as a relict from rural-urban migration that dwindles as cities and urban economies grow. Today economic hardships have necessitated the growth of Urban Agriculture (UA) in Zimbabwe and competition for land among the farmers themselves. Historically, no support has been given to poor urban farmers to enable them to have access to land to practice agriculture.”

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