May 2015
RUAF Update
no.24
In this update: Ongoing activities • CITYFOOD network • Milan Urban Food Policy Pact • CityFoodTools workshop on city region food system assessment • Role of urban agriculture in working with refugees in Jordan • WABEF: using slaughterhouse waste for bio-energy production • Successful course on Food Security in an Urbanising Society • Young Expert Programme
Meet the RUAF team Publications • Agriculture in urban planning: between participation and the market • UA Magazine 26 in Portuguese • UA Magazine 29 City Region Food Systems • UA Magazine 30 Rural-urban linkages, joint issue with ILEIA
Events • Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture • Vertical Farming Summit Beijing - Taking food production to new heights • Special Urban Food Forum at ICLEI Resilient Cities Congress • CityLinks Webinar on urban food security, water, sanitation and climate change • International seminar: Local urban food policies in the global food sovereignty debate
News Shanghai’s green ring generates half of city’s food
Shanghai is China’s largest city and one of the world’s megacities. Despite rapid urbanisation, Shanghai now still produces more than 55 % of its vegetables and 90 % of its green-leaf vegetables, according to the municipal government, and in most areas, food production is increasing. Since 2005, RUAF has been working in Minhang, the second largest urban district economically and located close to the centre of Shanghai. With a multi-stakeholder approach, engaging government authorities, farmers, collectives, enterprises, universities, research institutes and market organisations, RUAF organised improvements in five areas: joint strategic master planning, establishment of farming cooperatives, provision of technical assistance, innovative financing and introduction of a tracing system to improve food safety. Read more on this approach and its effect on urban farming. Additional information on: http://wwf.panda.org/. Image by foreign policy via designboom
RUAF Update - May 2015
Ongoing activities
Milan Urban Food Policy Pact
A draft of the Urban Food Policy Pact and “Framework for Action” has been developed by over 35 participating cities and the technical support and advisory team. The final Pact will be presented in Milan in October 2015. For more information: h.renting@ruaf.org or stefania.amato@comune. milano.it.
Midterm workshop WABEF: using slaughterhouse waste for bioenergy production
Image: http://www.lcp.org.ph
CITYFOOD network on resilient urban agriculture and food systems co-founded by cities
During the ICLEI World Congress held in April 2015, 96 Mayors signed the Seoul Declaration that calls cities and other stakeholders to “encourage sustainable urban food production projects and resilient city-region food systems programmes”. Please download the Seoul Declaration in English or in Spanish.
In April 2015, RUAF participated in a mission to Dakar, Senegal to discuss the progress of the WABEF project. This project aims to demonstrate the use of biogas for energy and fertiliser in West-Africa and is led by CIRAD-France. The meeting included a visit to a biogas installation at a slaughterhouse in Dakar. This installation consists of a re-enforced plastic bag that is partly filled with the slaughterhouse waste.
During the Congress, also the international CITYFOOD network on resilient urban agriculture and food systems was co-founded by the cities of Belo Horizonte, Linkoping, Almeida and others. The network welcomes other local and regional governments to join. RUAF Foundation will be providing technical and policy advice and expertise to member cities. More information from Monika Zimmermann: monika.zimmermann@ iclei.org or Marielle Dubbeling: m.dubbeling@ruaf.org.
CityFoodTools workshop on city region food system assessment
The Carasso supported CityFoodTools project, managed by RUAF, with participation from the Wilfrid Laurier Centre on Food Systems and the FAO-Food for the Cities Programme “Building food secure and resilient city regions”, organised an expert meeting in Rome beginning of March to discuss a methodological framework for assessment and mapping of city region food systems. Examples from Bristol, Cape Town, Milan and food mapping research by IWMI were shared with the participants. Results from the workshop include a short city region food system narrative, a workshop report and a draft methodological document that will be further validated with the project partner cities. These documents are available on request. First missions will be implemented to Colombo (Sri Lanka), Kitwe and Lusaka (Zambia) and Medellin (Colombia) in the coming 2 months. For further information please contact h.renting@ruaf. org and guido.santini@fao.org.
The smell results from the slaughterhouse not the biogas system! Image: WABEF
The slaughter waste produces a high quality biogas that is fed to a generator that runs 24 hours/day and produces power of 100 kW. The system is financially viable, if constructed locally. A large part of the income stream comes from the sales of the digestate as a plant fertiliser. The system has an enormous potential to be used by many of the food processing industries in the region and if manufactured locally could also be generating new employment opportunities in manufacturing, operation and maintenance. Such economic model that spurs the use of local resources and generates income for and in the local economy (blue economy) is considered to be most attractive in pursuing further business models.
RUAF Update - May 2015
Scoping mission on the role of urban agriculture in working with refugees in Jordan RUAF, in collaboration with SPcities and City of Almere, participated in a mission to Amman, Jordan (15 to 25 March) funded by VNGI (International Cooperation of the Association of Dutch Municipalities) and Almere City, The Netherlands. The mission met with local RUAF partners –including the Amman municipal urban agriculture programme, Mafraq governorate and representatives of Al Za’Atari refugee camp. The mission suggests to support both, host- and refugee communities residing in urban areas and in the refugee camp, with small scale agriculture initiatives, under the wider umbrella of local development of the region. This support is to be provided in close collaboration with local municipalities and the governorate. For more information contact: r.van.veenhuizen@ ruaf.org.
Image: Bernadina Borra
Successful course on Food Security in an Urbanising Society
This new course took place from 9 to 20 March in the Netherlands and was organised by CDI, Wageningen UR and RUAF Foundation. The course was followed by an enthusiastic group of 35 persons from 14 countries, mostly from Africa, the Middle-East and Asia. It focused on how rural food production, urban agriculture and city region food systems can be integrated in such a way that urban dwellers can be assured better access to adequate quantities of nutritious food while sustaining the viability of the production areas. Module 1 focused on Agrifood systems in an urbanising society and Module 2 on Planning for sustainable city region agrifood systems. Excursions where made to urban agriculture and food initiatives in both the cities of Rotterdam and Utrecht. The course was considered practical, interactive and innovative by participants. Some testimonials of 2015 participants: “Course materials are very rich in new knowledge for me, enlightening about many things.” “I learnt a lot on initiating urban programmes and types of urban farming in relation to climate change.” “This course opened my view that today, the food security issue in urban areas has not been considered an important part of city life. This aspect is often overlooked or not addressed in urban planning.” In view of the positive experiences, this new course on urban agriculture and city region food systems is planned to be organised again in September 2016. For more information you can contact h.renting@ruaf.org.
Images: Alberto Gianni
RUAF Update - May 2015
Publications Agriculture in urban planning: between participation and the market
A second special issue of the Spanish journal Habitat y Sociedad on urban agriculture has been published. Henk Renting from RUAF served as guest editor and contributed with an article on European research projects on urban agriculture and urban food systems. The magazine furthermore includes papers on community gardens in Berlin (Germany), intercultural gardens in Innsbruck, urban landscape change in Italy (all in English), the network of neighbourhood gardens in Madrid and the Urban Agriculture programme of the Rosario municipality. A full pdf is available here.
Young Expert Programme
Funded by the Dutch Water Partnership (NWP), RUAF collaborated with IWMI Ghana in hosting a Young Expert (YE), to investigate the status of work on urban and periurban agriculture in Ghana, and new lines of work. After one year, the YE (Richard Appoh), has found employment with IWMI Ghana. His report is available with RUAF. For more information contact: r.appoh@cgiar.org or r.van.veenhuizen@ruaf.org.
Meet the RUAF team Perhaps you have been wondering about who is behind RUAF? We have added a new section on the website where you can meet the team of the RUAF international secretariat. Winfried Rijssenbeek has recently joined the team. Winfried has a long-standing background in sustainable agriculture and sustainable energy (bio-energy, solar, wind). He seeks and supports innovations in these fields, with a clear sense of business and financial viability.
Urban Agriculture Magazine 29: City Region Food Systems
This upcoming issue addresses the growing attention for policy and practice approaches that focus on food issues in urban areas from a city-regional perspective, taking into account possible contributions from urban and periurban agriculture and a strengthening of urban-rural relations. It features amongst others articles on research and policy development in partner cities involved in the SUPURBFOOD programme. The Magazine will be officially launched at the ICLEI Resilient Cities Congress on 10 June in Bonn, Germany. We did not get much response on the cover contest, perhaps due to a lack of clarity on what a city region food system entails. In our opinion, Jacques Abelman, a landscape architect, has given an interesting interpretation and his graphic will therefore feature on the cover of the Magazine. We would like to thank the others for sending in their photos, we are happy to use them in our upcoming publications. We have highlighted one of them here. Photo by Daniel Münderlein “The pictured project is located in a suburb of Lisbon between one of the biggest shopping malls in Europe and a residential area. This spatial situation reflects the role urban agriculture should play in the 21st century. The production of food is a necessary part of the urban lifestyle and should be close to the places where people live and go shopping. Urban agriculture can also help to qualify the surrounding open spaces and urban fringes. At the same time it is obvious, that there is still a large contrast between the shopping centre and the fragmented garden project. This gap has to be closed in order to create a working agricultural supply system. An ironic part hidden in the picture is the fact, that the stakeholders in the pictured garden project are mainly old Portuguese men who are looking for successors. The shopping mall and the housing projects are filled with young people, who don’t take notice of the garden projects.”
RUAF Update - May 2015
Past events Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture
Illustration: Corentin Perrichot
UA Magazine 30 Rural-urban linkages, joint issue with ILEIA
UA Magazine 30 meets Farming Matters 31.1! RUAF and ILEIA have joined forces to co-produce a magazine on rural-urban linkages. The joint initiative is a meeting of like-minded organisations that share unique expertise and perspectives. RUAF draws from grounded experiences in urban agriculture and food systems, and ILEIA from family farming and agro-ecology. This is an opportunity to explore and affirm the links between rural and urban in renewing our food systems. The Magazine documents experiences from across the world where farmers and citizens engage to actively shape the way their food is produced and, in the process, blur the rural-urban divide. Rural-urban relations are radically altered through tangible linkages such as innovative marketing arrangements, migration, ecosystem services and knowledge sharing. And while these links between rural and urban are built and strengthened, new pathways towards sustainable food systems are being forged. New agro-ecological practices are developed, communities achieve food sovereignty, and youth and women are taking leading roles. On the one hand, we see a reaffirmation of several strong points of rural ways of living typical of peasants; on the other hand, urban initiatives by producers and consumers as well as renewed relations between city and countryside bring important new dynamics and reinforce more sustainable and resilient food systems. These local responses to globalisation in cities and countryside have in common that they are based on principles of agro-ecology, multifunctionality and social economy rather than on the logic of corporate business and finance. They show that family farming remains a determining force in the 21st century, and also that it increasingly takes root in urban and periurban settings and is forging promising pathways, in coalition with citizens, to tackle the food, environmental and climate crises. This Magazine will appear in June 2015. More information: info@farmingmatters.org or h.renting@ruaf.org.
Hosted by the city of Abu Dhabi, the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture was organised this year from 9-11 March, with presentations, demonstrations and interactions on sustainable agriculture solutions. This year’s focus was on Edible Cities, Building Resilience with Urban Agriculture, featuring vertical farming, urban greenhouses and urban planning. It also hosted a Forum on Water Technologies, Innovation, Recovery and Re-use. RUAF participated in the plenary panel on Innovations and Technologies for Creating Climate Smart Urban Food Systems, and in a panel on Planning and Designing Sustainable Food Producing Cities. The UA Magazine no. 28 on Innovations is related to the issues discussed in the 2014 and this GFIA. Among the (re)new(ed) contacts are Philips City Farming Division, Plantagon, and Farmed Here. GFIA will be followed by a similar event in Durban and next year again in Abu Dhabi. http://www. innovationsinagriculture.com/
Vertical Farming Summit Beijing: Taking food production to new heights
This event (9-10 May) was organised by AVF (Association for Vertical Farming) in cooperation with Beijing IEDA Protected Horticulture Co ltd. and RUAF Foundation. It brought together international experts and local stakeholders in urban vertical farming (roof top gardens, rooftop green houses, indoor plant factories, green walls, etcetera) to discuss best practices and technological progress, as well as related market, policy and planning opportunities and constraints. More information: h.dezeeuw@ruaf.org or www.vertical-farming. net.
Upcoming events
Image: Arnaud Thierry Gouegnon
Special Urban Food Forum at ICLEI Resilient Cities Congress 8-10 June, Bonn, Germany
RUAF Foundation, together with the SUPURBFOOD programme and ICLEI and the CITYFOOD programme, will organise a special Urban Food Forum on Wednesday 10 June as part of the ICLEI Resilient Cities Congress 2015. Mayors and high-level representatives from cities in Europe and the global South will share some of their innovative urban food practices and policies in a plenary session; followed by a series of parallel events that will address issues like the integration of urban agriculture into land use planning; a global assessment of urban agriculture through the lens of intensifying urban pressures and increasing climate risks and the role and potential of small and medium enterprises in urban food systems. For more information please contact: m.dubbeling@ruaf.org.
CityLinks Webinar on urban food security, water, sanitation and climate change, 6 June 2015
RUAF, together with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) will organise on Tuesday June 16 a free webinar hosted by the USAID-funded CityLinks program to discuss challenges and promising approaches cities can use to implement an urban food security-water-sanitation-climate change nexus approach in the context of sustainable development goals and the new urban agenda. This will be the second webinar of 2. A first webinar was organised on May 12, with presentations by ICLEI, GIZ (Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) and CUNY (The City University of New York). Recordings of the webinar will be made available shortly.
RUAF Foundation is a global centre of expertise in the field of urban and peri-urban agriculture and food systems. Since 1999, RUAF has supported local and sub-national governments, urban producer organisations, NGOs, CBOs, research centres and other stakeholders with training, technical assistance, action-research and policy advice in various related areas. RUAF is a notfor-profit organisation registered in the Netherlands. For more information: http://www.ruaf.org The RUAF Update is the newsletter from 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.
International seminar: Local Urban Food Policies in the global food sovereignty debate 11-12 June 2015, Ghent
The city of Ghent launched its local food policy “Gent en Garde” in October 2013. The city is eager to better understand the relevance of these policies for food sovereignty in cities worldwide and offers its experience as a case-study to start analysis and discussions. City governments, the academic and the civil society community are therefore invited to take part in the analysis of local food policies, sharing of good practices from other cities and continents and to develop concepts that increase understanding of how local food systems are globally interdependent. This seminar is co-organised by the City of Ghent and Ghent University and is part of the process towards a global Urban Food Policy Pact. Participation in this international seminar creates the opportunity to contribute to a landmark process in policy formulation on the role of cities in the global food sovereignty challenge. More information: http://issuu.com/gentsoverlegnoord-zuid/docs/20150216_no_ interrnational_seminar_/1
Image: Gent en garde