RUAF Update #22 OCT 2014

RUAF Update ISSUE 22: October 2014

Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture Hosted by the city of Abu Dhabi, the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture was organised this year from 3-5 February, with the aim to demonstrate how new ideas can be used to substantially increase food production in both arid and semi-arid climates. RUAF Foundation hosted a round-table session on the promotion of inclusive technical innovations (see for a report the forthcoming UAM no.28).

The next Forum (9-10 March 2015) will again feature demonstrations and interactions on sustainable agriculture solutions with workshops on edible cities, building resilience with urban agriculture, vertical farming, urban greenhouses, and urban planning and also host a panel on water technologies, innovation, recovery and re-use.

Vertical farming and urban agriculture Henk de Zeeuw, former RUAF director, attended the international conference on vertical farming and urban agriculture in Nottingham on 9 and 10 September. The conference aimed to evaluate the benefits, opportunities, risks and challenges of vertical farming and urban agriculture and provided a forum for academic researchers and commercial interests. Henk talked about strategies to strengthen city-region agri-food systems.

He emphasised that cities must relate to their surroundings, innovate local food systems and city food policy with participation of all the actors in the food chain. Furthermore, he stressed the importance of not reducing the concept of urban agriculture to vertical farming alone, as different contexts may require different types of urban agriculture systems and approaches (varying from low tech to higher tech systems). A more elaborate report of his contribution can be found here.

GROW the CITY Urban agriculture cafĂŠ on Harvesting Nutrients On 10 July, Grow the City in collaboration with Eetbaar Rotterdam (Edible Rotterdam), Nutrient Platform and the Municipality of Rotterdam organised the final urban agriculture cafĂŠ in a series of 4 that were part of the OXFAM supported GROW project.

The event attracted people with an interest in the circular economy and in reusing or recycling nutrients for increased efficiency.

Special guest Bizoola Gandaa, researcher at the University for Development Studies in Tamale (Ghana) talked about nutrient recycling in Ghana. Jan-Willem Van der Schans of Wageningen UR discussed the role of Eetbaar Rotterdam and the Rotterdam Food Council in city farming and the recycling of nutrients.

Dutch examples discussed included Rotterzwam, an initiative that grows mushrooms in the city on a substrate from coffee waste (read the upcoming article in UAM no.28) and the Hoeve Ackerdijk.

Past urban agriculture cafes of Grow the City were held in Groningen (on participation, planning and management of urban agriculture with guests from Rosario and Ghent), Almere (on Feeding the City with guests from Toronto and Milan) and Utrecht (on sustainable urban agriculture with a guest from South Africa).

A final Grow the City report with results and recommendations will soon be available on our website.

ISSUE 22: October 2014

RUAF Update

SUPURBFOOD

in Bristol Video of the visit to the Community Farm

On 2 to 4 July, the fourth SUPURBFOOD project meeting took place in Bristol (UK). The project partners met to discuss the progress of Work Packages 4, 5, and 6: Closing of nutrient, water and urban waste cycles in urban and peri-urban agriculture, Short chain delivery of food in urban and peri-urban areas, and Multifunctional land use in urban and peri-urban areas.

The host in Bristol, the University of Gloucestershire, organised two field visits, one to the FareShare organisation that works with the aim of minimising fitfor-purpose fresh, frozen and long-life food going to waste by distributing this food to charities working with the most vulnerable people in the community; and the Community Farm which is a for profit organisation that grows organic fruits and vegetables, distributing them through a box scheme and a wholesale service. The next issue of the UA magazine (no.29) will feature case studies from the SUPURBFOOD project.

CREATING URBAN AGRICULTURE ENTERPRISES IN EUROPE Achieving a smart, inclusive and sustainable economy is a crucial challenge for the European Union. To respond to this challenge, the EU will need to invest more in developing innovation and entrepreneurial capacity for a green economy. Urban Agriculture and urban green infrastructure are among such potential innovative agro-enterprises. The URBAN GReen Education for ENTteRprising Agricultural Innovation project (URBAN GREEN TRAIN) aims to encourage pioneering business-oriented initiatives on UA based on knowledge exchange, ` cooperation and innovation among SMEs, mutual policy makers and Higher Education Institutes.

The project will create a range of innovative training modules and resources for these different target groups. The project (Sep 2014 Aug 2017) is funded by ERASMUS+ and coordinated by the Alma Mater StudiorumUniversity of Bologna (Italy). It engages 10 partners from France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Monitoring impacts on climate change This project implemented by the RUAF Foundation with financial support from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) aims not only to test a framework for monitoring climate change impacts of urban agriculture and forestry, but also to use monitoring data to enhance policy uptake and better integrate urban agriculture into climate change, land use and city development planning.

Based on the first project interventions in Rosario (Argentina), the municipality (its Secretary of Production) and Santa Fe Province (Ministry of Production) agreed on the importance on preserving the peri-urban horticulture green belt in order to maintain and increase local production and reduce food miles and related energy use and GHG emissions.

At the same time, it calls for the promotion of more agro-ecological production practices to enhance availability of healthy food and reduce use of chemical inputs. The municipality and province were able to sign an agreement in November 2013 with the association of hotels and restaurants in Rosario to agree on promotion of sales of agro-ecological produce. The project received pesos $400.000 from the government for its implementation.

At the same time, the municipality has included a new land use category in their urban development plan titled “land used for primary production�. They have currently doubled the peri-urban horticulture zone from 400 to 800 ha ensuring its protection from urbanisation and conversion to soya production.

ISSUE 22: October 2014

WABEF bio-waste study tour RUAF, in partnership with CIRAD and UCAD, IAGU, AEDR, SONGHAI, is executing the project Western Africa Bio-wastes for Energy and Fertilizer (WABEF). The purpose is to develop and disseminate an innovative and participative approach to policy influencing bio-waste management through the implementation of viable anaerobic digestion (biogas; bio-fertilisers, other productive use of bio-slurry) technologies in the Sudano-Sahelian context. RUAF is involved in the inventory of practices, the definition of generic conditions for business models, and involving relevant stakeholders for policy uptake.

As part of the inventory of technologies, RUAF organised a study tour in September. With project partners from Senegal, Mali, Benin and France, experiences with biogas, electricity and struvite production were visited. Examples in the Netherlands are experimental stations of dairy farms in Putten, Hengelo and Leeuwarden, Municipal wastewater treatment in Sneek and Amsterdam, and a bio-energy village in Germany. A report of the study tour (which continued to France and Spain), and short description of these experiments will soon be shared on the RUAF and WABEF website.

RUAF Update

Globe-UrbanFoodPlus This project aims to enhance resource use efficiency and improve food security of West African cities through urban and peri-urban agriculture.

From 29 Sep to 4 Oct, UrbanFoodPlus organised its Summer School in Tamale, Ghana. In addition to various presentations by researchers and discussions of working groups, a one-day seminar was held on the potential uses of bio-char in urban agriculture. Furthermore, RUAF facilitated multi-stakeholder workshops in Tamale and in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. This was the second stakeholder workshop that UrbanFoodPlus held in both locations.

Participants were especially interested in the adaptation of the project-tested technologies for use by farmers. Other issues raised in this meeting were related to access of farmers to land, finance and extension services, and the need for movement towards dissemination of research and practice.

In Ouagadougou, a subcommittee was formed after the workshop comprising representatives from the Ministry of food security, the City Mayor, credit institutions and farmers' and herders' organisations to deal with the issue of access to land. The aim of this small group is to draft policy recommendations. To inform their policy frameworks, the stakeholder platforms in Ouagadougou and Tamale will draw on the results generated by the UrbanFoodPlus researchers.

Upcoming Events Ebola in Liberia RUAF Foundation collaborates with German Welthungerhilfe and Action Contre la Faim in Liberia. Due to the Ebola crisis, most of the activities have come to a halt since August. Several members of the local team continue working on selected project activities, and collaborate with other organisations, in providing awareness on Ebola and other necessary support activities. Ebola has already taken several lives among the UPA farmers who worked with the project. Urban households in general are experiencing food insecurity as a result of insufficient inputs supplies.

Partners like Monrovia City, MoA and Township commissioners have requested for support to the project. There is a need for buckets and protective materials that farmers will use at farmer markets. Farmers also requested seeds to seek to contribute to food supplies to the cities.

In addition, the project is developing maps to locate vulnerable communities, and seeks to assists farmers at the waste plant who have had to temporary move because their land is used for treatment of hospital waste.

28 October 2014 Foundations for Family Farming: Building Inclusive Partnerships (Brussels, Belgium) The UN General Assembly has decided to dedicate 2014 to family farming; it considers that it has the potential to meet the important challenges for global agriculture. The programme will be developed along the following three thematic areas: Feeding the cities: improving the rural-urban nexus; Supporting farmers and farmer organisations; Agroecology and sustainable farming practices. A study on approaches in supporting family/smallholder farming will be launched.

ISSUE 22: October 2014

WASH Fact Sheets on FIETS Indicators Under the Dutch WASH Alliance, sustainability is a leading principle.

WASH services can only endure on the long term and can be managed locally when five sustainability areas are taken into account: financial, institutional, environmental, technical and social (FIETS).

This FIETS approach is further discussed and illustrated in UAM no.26, and on the WASH website. Recently, various fact sheets illustrating the FIETS approach have been developed by WASH partners, which will soon be available on the website. RUAF contributed with a short booklet on financing, and two factsheets, one illustrating its multistakeholder approach, and recent work on co-composting with University of Development Studies.

Irrigated Urban Vegetable Production in Ghana Characteristics, Benefits and Risk Mitigation The second edition of this book, published by IWMI, UrbanFoodPlus and RUAF Foundation, presents updated research findings on urban and peri-urban agriculture and vegetable farming in Ghana's major cities with a special focus on the risks and risk mitigation related to the use of polluted water sources as it is common across Sub-Saharan Africa. You can access the book online.

UA Magazine:

Upcoming issues UAM No. 28 Innovations in urban and peri-urban agriculture (expected October 2014) This issue is being finalised and will be available on the RUAF website soon. It will highlight innovations in urban agriculture, from small-scale and low-tech innovations to larger-scale and higher tech innovations such as vertical farming. Urban farming systems need to be adapted to specific urban conditions such as confined space, closeness to consumers, and take into account safety concerns. Innovation is continuously taking place, exploring the multiple functions of urban agriculture, including food security, income generation and environmental management.

UAM No. 29 City-Region food systems (expected March 2015) This issue of the Urban Agriculture Magazine will deal with city region food systems and includes experiences of the SUPURBFOOD project.

Articles on city region food systems assessment or policy-making can be send to: h.renting@ruaf.org The RUAF Update is the newsletter from the International Network of Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF Foundation). To subscribe: ruaf-news-on@ruaf.org, to unsubscribe: ruaf-news-off@ruaf.org You can contact us for more information at info@ruaf.org Lately, we received several donations for which we are really grateful. Among the core aims of the RUAF Foundation are our support to projects and programmes on the ground, as well as our efforts to share experiences on urban agriculture through our open-access UA magazine, distance learning courses, policy briefs and other publications. We set aside the recent donations to improve our services for beneficiaries of RUAF's work through improved information sharing and local action on the ground. If you would also like to support us go to: http://www.ruaf.org/donate

RUAF Update

Upcoming Events 10 December 2014 Agriculture in Urban Areas: Toward a Swiss Research Agenda (Lausanne, Switzerland) Urban agriculture is an emerging topic in Swiss research and public policy. The purpose of this meeting is to facilitate an exchange between researchers and practitioners interested in the intersection of agricultural and urban issues in order to outline a research agenda for the next 10 years. This meeting also marks the launch of the Swiss Urban Agriculture Network (SUAN) that aims to exchange information, experiences, and to enhance collaboration between urban agriculture research and practice.

RUAF will provide an overview of global experiences in urban agriculture.

9 - 20 March 2015 Food security in an urbanising society (Wageningen, Netherlands) This course, organised by Wageningen UR and the RUAF Foundation, focuses on how rural production and urban market systems can be integrated such that urban dwellers can be assured better access to adequate quantities of nutritious food while sustaining the viability of the production areas. The training programme consists of two modules of one week that can also be taken separately, in 2 different years. Module 1 focuses on Agrifood systems in an urbanizing society and Module 2 on Planning for sustainable city region agrifood systems. Participants of this course will have at least a BSc level and several years of professional work experience in a related field. More information on the course: http://tinyurl.com/lzal893