The Tap Tap Garden is Haiti’s largest urban garden containing more than 500 brightly painted tire gardens

Bochika press release
Jan. 2012

The “Jaden Tap Tap” urban agroecology and youth empowerment program was inaugurated on January 22, 2012. Nearly 600 individuals and organizations joined in this celebration of possibility and progress in Cite Soleil, Haiti, sponsored by Bochika with special guest BelO.

PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI – Bochika is pleased to announce that the “Jaden Tap Tap” (Tap Tap Garden) urban community garden was proudly inaugurated on January 22, 2012 in Cite Soleil, Haiti. The Tap Tap Garden is Haiti’s largest urban garden containing more than 500 brightly painted tire gardens, flower garden, and a nursery of 1,000 trees. Nearly 600 community members, NGO’s, and government officials joined Bochika, SAKALA-Pax Christi Ayiti, and SOIL in celebrating the inauguration of the garden, as well as a new community Eco-San Toilet. The crowd was delighted to participate in the daylong event that featured a “farmers market”, agricultural demonstrations, musical and dance performances by local youth, and special appearance by internationally recognized Haitian recording artist, BelO.

The inauguration showcased the Tap Tap Garden as a model for urban agriculture for the neighborhood, country, and the world – demonstrating that bountiful, nutritious gardens can be grown in even the harshest conditions. The Tap Tap Garden is an acre of former landfill that now symbolizes hope, empowerment, education, and opportunity for Cite Soleil, one of Haiti’s most impoverished neighborhoods. As part of Pax Christi Ayiti’s SAKALA youth empowerment program, the garden is also a living classroom, providing 250 at-risk youth with a safe, positive environment in which to learn the basics of agroecology, agroforestry, nutrition, and to develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills. Food grown in the Tap Tap Garden feeds more than 250 neighborhood youth and residents of the nearby elderly and disabled persons displacement camp, Mitchiko, and will be sold to ensure long-term sustainability of the garden.

Bochika would like to thank everyone who attended and/or contributed to the success of the inauguration, especially our fellow partners in the Tap Tap Garden: Pax Christi Ayiti, Pax Christi USA, SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods), Pro- Huerta, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and Onslot Creative. A special thanks to esteemed guests, Ambassador Marcelo Raul Sebaste from Argentina, Ambassador Ivan Gaton from the Dominican Republic, and to all of the performers, especially BelO for their support.

See their website here.

A Growing Balcony

By Simon Chambers
The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund
Dec 23, 2011

Excerpt:

Elide Barthole is lucky to still be living in her home in Carrefour, Haiti. Over half the homes in her community were destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. Elide’s home looks somewhat unique, however, among those houses still standing in the area: it has no open land around it, but her balcony is surrounded by greenery.

Milene Volcy (right) and two of her children (Bibi left and Darosemie center) pose in their garden. Photo by PWRDF.

Elide’s is one of 80 households in Carrefour that are part of an urban agriculture project PWRDF is supporting through CEDDIEC, the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti’s development organization. In this program, 300 households around the Port-au-Prince area receive seeds, compost, agriculture training, and insecticides.

Read the complete article here.

Watch Out Folks, Look What’s Coming Down the Street: Reflections on Cuba, the Global Food Situation and Victoria, BC

By David Stott
2011, Victoria, BC
David Stott is a community garden organizer and food security projects coordinator. Prior to working in this field he spent twenty years working in the international development and development education fields.

When most of us think of Cuba we tend to think of sun, sand, great music or Fidel Castro. However, when I spent a month in Cuba in January of this year, I had other ideas in mind. As a local organic farmer turned garden projects organizer for the last 20 years or so, I have a particular personal interest in Cuba and its role in sustainable agriculture, particularly in urban areas. What I learned there, and since I have returned, has caused me to open my eyes not only to food production in Cuba, but also to what is happening elsewhere on the planet and here at home. Where we are at now and where we could be going with global and local food production and availability, something that most Canadians have either taken for granted or left to “the experts”. After all, we’re an advanced country that will always be able to feed itself, right?

Cuba is often cited as being a world leader in sustainable food production, a model for the rest of the world to follow. And, as I discovered in my visits to five different cities and eight different small scale agricultural operations, there are some really good things happening in and around the cities in Cuba in terms of small scale urban agriculture. For example, the number of small scale organic market gardening operations that can be found in and around Cuban cities has established itself as a major food contributor in the last twenty years. Most noticeably this has happened in the last decade, so that according to Wikipedia, today over 7,000 of these community based and serving market gardens can be found throughout the country, with more than 35,000 hectares of land in and around Havana producing 90% of the fruit and vegetables this city of 2.4 million consumes.

It would appear also that Cuba has been subject to some of the same trends that are shaping the rest of the world. Despite efforts by the government to discourage rural-urban migration, Cuba, and particularly Havana, have been subject to a major rural urban shift, particularly in the last 20 years. In fact, according to Lisa Wolfe of the Food First Institute, in 1989 some 28 percent of Cuba’s population lived in urban areas but by 2005 this figure had shifted to 74%! No wonder large parts of the countryside looked barren—most of the producers had left for the cities! At the same time, however, many people, perhaps some of the same people who left the countryside, are starting or working on the cooperative or privately operated market gardens that ring the cities. In fact, today Cuba has more than 7,000 of these enterprises, and, with the agreement from and support of the state, more are being started every year.

As beneficiaries of a long heritage of cheap globalized food sources, it may be hard for us to think that this should be of direct or immediate concern to us. And yet the news media occasionally raises us from our slumber with headlines such as the recent headline in the business section of the Times Colonist reading Global Food Prices Hit Record High. Is this something that we should be concerned about? What I discovered after checking on what I believe to be authoritative information from sources such as the World Bank, Lester Brown of the World Watch Institute and writer Gwyn Dyer might best be summarized in the following manner.

This is a large organoponico that is located in the suburbs of Sancti Spiritus, also near the centre of Cuba. In the forground is a garden that was started by a class of Univ. of Alberta students under the guidance of Ron Berezan and in the background is the garden itself. As part of their agreement with the state, they provide food for a nearby hospital and a lunch program at a nearby school. The state provides the land as well as the cement and other materials for the raised beds. This was the case with all the organoponicos I saw. Photo by David Stott.

There appears to be a broad concensus that a major global food shortage including increasing numbers of famines is coming. Why? It would appear that we are creating a “perfect storm” in global food supply. The exploding world population, together with overfarming, overfishing and environmental degradation, to name just four of several major factors, are all starting to catch up with us. How has this affected world food prices thus far?

It is perhaps not surprising that a report by the World Bank in 2008 reported an 83% increase in global food prices between 2005-2008 when oil prices were peaking, heading towards $147 per barrel..Historically, because of conventional agriculture’s huge dependence on oil for all aspects of its production, food prices have always paralleled oil prices in increases. Now, once again, after some drop in food prices during the recession, food prices increased over 30% this last year, only 3% below their peak in 2008.

As food prices continue to rise, will we start to see more food riots erupt all over the world as starving populations demand answers from their governments? According to CNN’s website, “Social media may have fanned the flames of revolt which toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt and triggered demonstrations across the Middle East. But the tinderbox was built on high unemployment, corruption and rising food prices. It’s a telling sign that the trouble in Tunisia started with the self immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor protesting the police seizure of his produce cart.”

And, what will happen if weather patterns get even worse or if we have a string of really bad natural disasters?

Due to escalating resource scarcities from oil and gas to fish and forests together with climatic changes and economic vulnerabilities, we are faced with the virtual certainty of an increasingly volatile future, perhaps starting with food supplies. Even in our situation, where our wealth and high valued currency cushion us from the full impact of global food scarcities and rising prices, more people are starting to have to change their food buying and eating habits. Of course those most severely affected are lower income households, who have fewer if any alternatives and whose health is being affected.

I also think most of us sense that, in a number of very important ways, our planetary culture is skating on increasingly thin ice, not just in terms of food production, but in many other respects, environmentally, economically and in terms of our social safety nets. For the most part, however, most of us have been too busy with the demands of our work, social or personal lives to be concerned or to seriously consider and act on these concerns. But food is perhaps our most basic of needs, and something we can all do something about.

Here as elsewhere, as food becomes more expensive and in shorter supply, will we, children of the cities, start to relearn and repractice the smaller scale food growing skills that were an important part of the lives of our forefathers and mothers? We here on the Island have begun to take notice, with farmers markets selling local food springing up in almost every municipality, as well as groups such as the Slow Food Movement, the Island Chefs Collaborative, Gorge Tillicum Urban Farmers and the Land Conservancy supporting local growers and gardeners and training programs such as Halliburton Farm, Glendale Gardens and LifeCycles offering training to interested individuals. Then there is the community garden movement, which I am personally involved with, which is creating new community gardens.

Nevertheless, while these may be leading indicators for a growing movement and there is certainly public interest and support for such initiatives, without the active support of all levels of government, as well as local groups and organizations in a position to offer land or other forms of support, they are still responding to a tiny fraction of what needs to be done to simply grow more food for ourselves and to seriously impact on our huge vulnerability to global food challenges and scarcities. Rules need to be altered in support of local food production, funds need to be made available to support new farmers coming into farming. And something that individuals, governments at all levels and of all stripes, church and non-profit groups of all sorts could do now as a first step towards greater self sufficiency is to undertake assessments or inventories of their available land and resources. As Gandhi put it so well, “If the people lead, the leaders will follow.” Let us hope so.

As Cuba is showing, using intensive organic growing methods, our backyards as well as municipal lands together with private and organizationally owned lands that can produce huge amounts of food for our populations. If a country with a fraction of the resources available to it can do so, why can’t we? In fact, if we either have the foresight, or necessity drives us to do so, I foresee a time in the not too distant future, when we can begin to repopulate our rural areas as productive green spaces rather than rural estates, suburbs or hayfields. We could in fact, witness a form of rural renaissance in our lifetime as we begin to repopulate the areas surrounding our cities with new communities of small scale farmers taken from our cities. We can do so out of choice or we can do so out of necessity. I think that choosing to become more self sufficient is preferable to waiting until we have no choice and fewer options available to us.

To end where we began: Towards the end of my visit to Cuba, I spoke with a Cuban woman at one of the bed and breakfasts we were staying at. She mentioned that she had a 14 year old daughter. I asked her what she thought her daughter might do when she had finished school. Silence, then, “We don’t know what she should be preparing for.” Hesitation, then “But we do know that there will be work in agriculture.” Perhaps there is a lesson here for us, our children or our grandchildren.

Urban and peri-urban agriculture currently counts 400 ‘brigade members’

Caracas,Venezuela
AVN
19 Dec. 2011

8415 ‘agricultural production units’ have been established as part of an urban peri-urban agriculture project in the Greater Caracas area, according to figures released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MAT).

The project of urban and peri-urban agriculture seek to take advantage of idle areas inside cities to produce small scale horticultural, fruit, medicinal and ornamental crops, so as to foster family and community self-supply and micro-economy.

President of the Foundation for Training and Innovation to Support the Agrarian Revolution (CIARA), Martha Bolivar, said that the project received a loan of 78 million bolivares last October to foster the cultivation of foods in the Capital District and states Miranda and Vargas.

By 2012, it is expected to bolster this agricultural activity in states Anzoategui, Aragua, Carabobo, Lara, Tachira and Zulia.

Urban and peri-urban agriculture currently counts 400 ‘brigade members’, who support the works of CIARA and Cuban advisors attached to the project, who are devoted to train, accompany and monitor the delivery of agricultural supplies and tools.

Urban and peri-urban agriculture can grow staple foods, among these: chives, green bean, lettuce, leek, turnip, tomato, onion, cucumber, courgette, beetroot, carrot, basil, parsley and coriander, as well as a variety of medicinal plants, free from agrochemicals and fertilizers.

English link.

Spanish link.

Also See “Transforming Food Production through Agropatria & Mission AgroVenezuela”

Excerpt:

Urban Agriculture

Meanwhile, another government institution called the Foundation for Training and Innovation to Support the Agrarian Revolution (CIARA), announced it would launch a new campaign to promote urban agriculture.

“Urban agriculture is an alternative in the cities, to take advantage of those under-utilized spaces in order to produce foods that are free of agrotoxins”, said CIARA President Martha Bolivar. “Let’s plant seeds in our own spaces, produce our own foods, get information in the Agriculture and Land Ministry… and make the urban agriculture explosion”.

Bolivar said food produced in urban areas could be consumed by its producers or commercialized in urban communities in Venezuela’s largest cities, including Caracas, Maracay, Valencia, Maracaibo, San Cristobal, Puerto la Cruz, La Guaira,
and Barcelona.

Read the complete article here.

Haz tu propia ensalada

Jueves 31 De Marzo De 2011

Excerpt:

El próximo sábado 2 de abril, el grupo Sembradores Urbanos, en la Ciudad de México, inicia el taller Ensaladas Urbanas, una muy antojable propuesta inspirada, de acuerdo con sus organizadores, en los principios de la permacultura para cultivar y cosechar ensaladas orgánicas en espacios reducidos. A través de este taller, se pueden aprender sobre las variedades de cultivos comunes y gourmet para mezclas de ensaladas sabrosas, nutritivas y coloridas.

“La práctica de sembrar alimentos en la ciudad implica una adaptación creativa de los métodos comunes de siembra y cosecha. Aprenderemos técnicas apropiadas para tener cosechas abundantes durante todo el año y alcanzar la autosuficiencia con la producción de ensaladas orgánicas que llevarás de tu huerto urbano a la mesa”.

El temario del taller aborda puntos como Lechugas, hojas verdes y flores comestibles: identificación de variedades comunes y gourmet, mezclas para ensaladas; Modelos de producción: ubicación del huerto, selección de maceta, preparación de sustrato, siembra directa con semillas y trasplante con plántulas, riego, abono; Cosecha: calendario de siembra, rotación de cultivos, técnicas para cosechas continuas, cosecha de semillas.

Read the complete article here.

Estimated harvest figures show over nine hundred pounds of tomatoes, 330 pounds cucumber, 250 pounds of sweet peppers, 120 okras and large amounts of cilantro and habanero pepper.

LoveFM Belize
July 08, 2011

Six months after the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries introduced the Urban Agriculture Program in South side Belize City, families have been able to literally reap the fruits of their labor. These backyard vegetable gardens have been the foundation for which over fifty five families, approximately three hundred residents have benefitted. An award ceremony that marked the completion of phase one of the productive cycle was held this afternoon at the Cumberbatch Field.

Rene Montero- Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries
“By developing your productive capacity, you the participants of this program have succeeded in producing highly nutritious vegetables that have enable you to improve the nutritional status of yourself and your family. For the last six months you have taken additional responsibility and have responded positively and demonstrated that with determination you can become productive members of our society.”

Ina Iris Sanchez – Coordinator, UAP
“The urban agriculture program reaches out to the residents of Southside Belize City with planting material, seeds, seedlings, fertilizers, equipment and technical assistance for the installation of productive home gardens. Today we acknowledge the efforts of the beneficiaries who have remained on the program since its inauguration.”

Throughout the first phase, the estimated harvest figures show over nine hundred pounds of tomatoes, 330 pounds cucumber, 250 pounds of sweet peppers, 120 okras and large amounts of cilantro and habanero pepper. It is the hope of the Ministry to extend the program to other parts of the city and across the country.

Link here.

More here.

Bogotá, Columbia

Familias de sectores populares de Bogotá intentan garantizar su seguridad alimentaria mientras proyectos milagro al interior de sus comunidades, los cuales consisten en el desarrollo de nuevos modelos urbanos de agricultura.

Picture image above. See video here.

Video report

January 27, 2011

CNN’s Richard Quest reports on Mexico City’s example of growing your own food in small city space.

See video here.

From The Earth To The Pot from The Paradigm Shift Project on Vimeo.

Video is 20 minutes long. Go to Vimeo to watch it in a larger format, which will make the subtitles easier to read.

From The Earth To The Pot

by The Paradigm Shift Project
Highly recommended. Mike

Among many of Lima’s slum neighborhoods, urban agriculture projects have increasingly become a strategy to improve food security and make communities safer and greener. Community gardening programs throughout Lima are generating greater access to fresh nutritious food, thereby helping to break cycles of poverty and hunger. For this film The Paradigm Shift Project interviewed non-profit organizations; several community garden members and urban farmers; researchers from local nutritional and agricultural institutes; as well as local municipal authorities.

These interviews elucidated and documented the impact of urban agriculture projects on communities and families. It also provided a means for local participants to assert their specific needs in terms of food security and what types of support are required to continue and further these vital projects.

See the project website here for more information.

Compromiso Social: Huertas Comunitarias

Complete paper in Spanish.
Licenciatura en Administración Agropecuaria y Agronegocios
Orientación en Gestión de Agronegocios. Sede: Rosario.
Alumnos:
Campodimontti, Marcos.
Carrasco, Danisa.
Del Greco, Damián.
Sarjanovich, Juan Pablo.
Junio de 2007

El presente trabajo, uno de nuestros últimos pasos en nuestra formación profesional, surge de la necesidad de conocer un poco mas nuestro entorno. Concientes ya de que lo que vemos y percibimos no es todo lo que nos rodea. Necesitados de un panorama mas amplio de visión, es que hoy nos encontramos desarrollando una pequeña investigación sobre las Huertas de la Ciudad de Rosario.

Este trabajo no pretender dar cuenta de todo lo que el Programa de AU (agricultura urbana) significa, ni entrar en los detalles de sus actividades teóricas o practicas.

Lo que con este trabajo se busca hacer es interiorizarse en la vida de la organización, conocer a quienes la componen, como trabajan día a día, y porque hacen lo que hacen.

La única consigna que nos dieron para este trabajo fue que nos involucráramos con la institución que trabajamos. Es por eso que la mayor parte de lo aquí volcado deviene del testimonio que nos brindaron todas las personas a las que entrevistamos entre mate y mate a lo largo de estas tres semanas. Funcionarios de la Municipalidad, Gente del Programa y Huerteros. Cada uno nos brindo la información que hoy plasmamos acá. Porque para hacer este trabajo seguimos el día a día de toda esta gente, de la huerta a la feria, de la casa que les da cobijo a los más necesitados para que aprendan a sembrar a las oficinas del Programa donde se cocinan las estrategias que llevan a cabo.

Cada uno nos contó una historia, cada uno desde su lugar, cada uno desde su óptica nos transmitió desde su piel lo que sentían. Lo que hoy intentamos de la manera más fiel posible, es volcar todo eso en este trabajo.

Queremos agradecer profundamente a todos los que conforman este fantástico grupo de trabajo, se portaron de maravillas con nosotros y se brindaron en todo momento con total predisposición. A Raúl Terrile que nos abrió las puertas a esta investigación contándonos como se le da vida al Programa y llevándonos a lugares que solo de la mano de el se pueden visitar.

A Lucho Lemos que nos abrió la puerta para conocer desde abajo esta realidad, estos huerteros que son el fin ultimo del trabajo, esta historia de lucha que lleva tantos años entre nosotros de manera silenciosa.
A todos los feriantes, huerteros o no, que conforman estos espacios en plazas y distritos. Gracias por los regalos que nos hicieron y por el amor y paciencia que nos tuvieron.

Read the complete paper here.

Mexico City is one of the biggest urban centers in the world

By Pablo Torres-Lima, Alfonso Chávez-Muñoz, Gerardo Ávila-Jiménez and Sergio Contreras-Prado
The Journal of Feild Actions
Field Actions Sceince Reports
Special Issue 1, 2010, Urban Agriculture

Abstract

Planning land use processes are indispensable for designing policies and activities in peri-urban areas, above all because of the impact of the conversion of agricultural land for urban purposes and the possibility of reducing poverty and assuring the food supply. In Latin America, there are a limited number of studies which discuss institutional involvement and proposals for participative and multi-sector planning with the aim of generating viable conditions for urban agriculture in megacities, within the framework of sustainable development. This article analyzes the principal components of a planning process which promotes the development of agricultural production zones in Xochimilco-Tlahuac, Mexico City.

The experience was conceptualized in 2008 with the integration of data obtained through fieldwork, interviews, ethnographic techniques and geomatics, in order to intervene in policies and strategic activities. The positive aspect of this work includes promoting the idea that it is critical to support urban agriculture, by district or metropolitan authorities, in order to address various issues on the city’s development agenda, from the perspective of strategic planning and the practice of their implementation. We conclude that it is also necessary to re-assess the aspect of socio-territorial organization in the study region, in order to achieve an integrated, habitable and sustainable city by organizing agricultural activities in the rural areas of Mexico City.

The complete report can be found here.