Category — Middle East

Film by Dr. Shadi Hamadeh

American University of Beirut
In Arabic with English subtitles
2004
(Very interesting! Mike)

Animal husbandry remains the livelihoods of many communities, even in urban areas. This documentary film is a live witness of Arab Khaldeh families raising sheep in the suburbs of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, an integration of rural communities in urban areas.

Watch the film here.

Visit the Regional Website of Urban Agriculture in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region here.

Sana’a Gardens. Photo by Jeff Lindstrom
Larger image here.

By Amwl Al-Ariqi
Source: Yemen Times (YCPMI)
Date: 28 Dec 2009

Yemen has suffered greatly during the world food crisis, since early 2008, which increased the number of people in poverty. About two million people are depending on the aids given by the World Food Program in Yemen.

The country imports as much as 75 per cent of its food requirements, and hence is vulnerable to shortages in world stocks. Yemen’s poorest households may have no mechanism to cope with astronomical prices, warned international aids agencies in Yemen.

The WFP says that higher prices have already forced six percent of the population of 20 millions according to 2004, below the poverty line.

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Un hectare à Beyrouth – “Planete reporter” Le Monde.fr et Youtube

Une évocation de l’exploitation de Rahmé, agricultrice à Beyrouth. Les atouts de l’agriculture urbaine sont-ils une réponse aux enjeux environnementaux contemporains?

Un reportage destiné au concours “Planete reporter” organisé par Le Monde.fr et Youtube

Photograph courtesy of OPP-RTI. As food prices rise in Pakistan, some are turning to home gardens to put food on the table.

by Zubeida Mustafa
August 13, 2008

Many enterprising women have risen to meet the challenge by encouraging the poor to acquire self-sufficiency in food by growing their own vegetables in their backyards. Parveen Rahman, director of Orangi Pilot Project’s Research and Training Institute, comments on her organization’s aborted attempt to launch a program encouraging a kitchen garden in every home in the low-income Orangi Township. “This was many years ago and we could not get the women to take an interest in horticulture. So we cultivated OPP’s own little plot of land and grew vegetables there which the staff would purchase.” But now Parveen is hopeful that there will be more interest when she revives the kitchen garden program.

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“Agriculture activities have been receding for many years now in most of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) cities thus its main functions are being hindered. Despite the negative pressures, crop cultivation and animal husbandry remain common throughout the region’s cities. Fertile agricultural areas are still considerable and are expected to remain productive for years to come. Urban agriculture in the MENA countries is at present a highly diverse and widespread activity, yet it still suffers from lack of recognition form the planners, agriculturists, policy-makers, researchers and even by its practitioners.”

Link to ‘Urban Agriculture in the Middle East and North Africa’ Web Site here.

These three young men are part of an international program organized by the YMCA. Sheryl showed them the major features of our Demonstration Garden and they shared with us some of their urban farming world far from Vancouver.

Video in Hebrew shows the community garden’s beginnings in 2005.

Bustan Brody today by Michael Green in
Green Prophet – Forecasts on Israel’s Environment April 17, 2008

“The centre-piece for the Bustan, which translates to ‘orchard’ in both Hebrew and Arabic, are its many fruit trees, which Zavidov says are the ‘backbone’ of the garden’s ecosystem. Priority is given to native species including pomegranate, fig, almond and arava (willow) which, along with the sights and smells of the vegetable patch and herb bushes, owe much of their fertility to the steaming heaps of compost in the far corner, which turn kitchen waste and garden clippings into soil (with the help of bacteria, heat and a few worms).

Link to “How Does Your (Community) Garden Grow?”

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